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ROBERT CAr>ELL.EDINBirRG-B:;WBIT TAKER 8c C? : 
IS 35. 



THE 



LADY OF THE LAKE. 



IN SIX CANTOS. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bart. 




ROBERT CADELL, EDINBURGH. 

M.DOOC.XXXV. 



C..n 



EDINBURGH : 
PRINTED BY T. CONSTABLE, 1, THISTLE STREET. 



Jo 

cr 



CONTENTS. 





page 


Introduction to the Lady of the Lake, . 


1 


The Lady of the Lake. 




Canto I. The Chase, 


15 


II. The Island, 


45 


III. The Gathering, 


77 


IV, The Prophecy, 


107 


V. The Combat, 


139 


VI. The Guard-room, . . 


173 


Appendix to the Lady of the Lake, 


205 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
The Massacre of Glencoe, 
Farewell to Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail, 
Imitation of the preceding Song, 
War-Song of Lachlan, High Chief of Maclean, 
Pibroch of Donald Dhu, . . — . 

Macgregor's Gathering, 
Donald Caird's Come Again, 
Mackrimmon's Lament, 
Lullaby of an Infant Chief, 
The Dance of Death, 
The Search after Happiness ; or, the Quest of Sultaun 
Solimaun, .... 



283 
287 
28h 
290 
292 



300 
301 



307 



INTRODUCTION 



LADY OF THE LAKE. 



After the success of " Marmion," I felt inclined to ex- 
claim with Ulysses in the " Odyssey" — 

Ourog f&iv % ai$\o$ uocotros IxririXztfrcit. 

Odys. ;£. 1. 5. 

" One venturous game my hand has won to-day— 
Another, gallants, yet remains to play." 

The ancient manners, the habits and customs of the 
aboriginal race by whom the Highlands of Scotland were 
inhabited, had always appeared to me peculiarly adapt- 
ed to poetry. The change in their manners, too, had 
taken place almost within my own time, or at least I 
had learned many particulars concerning the ancient 
state of the Highlands from the old men of the last 
generation. I had always thought the old Scottish Gael 
highly adapted for poetical composition. The feuds. 



I INTRODUCTION TO THE 

-and political dissensions, which, half a century earlier, 
would have rendered the richer and wealthier part of 
the kingdom indisposed to countenance a poem, the 
scene of which was laid in the Highlands, were now 
sunk in the generous compassion which the English, 
more than any other nation, feel for the misfortunes of 
an honourable foe. The Poems of Ossian had, by their 
popularity, sufficiently shown, that if writings on High- 
land subjects were qualified to interest the reader, mere 
national prejudices were, in the present day, very un- 
likely to interfere with their success. 

I had also read a great deal, seen much, and heard 
more, of that romantic country, where I was in the habit 
of spending some time every autumn ; and the scenery 
of Loch Katrine was connected with the recollection of 
many a dear friend and merry expedition of former 
days. This poem, the action of which lay among scenes 
so beautiful, and so deeply imprinted on my recollections, 
was a labour of love, and it was no less so to recall the 
manners and incidents introduced. The frequent cus- 
tom of James IV., and particularly of James V., to 
walk through their kingdom in disguise, afforded me the 
hint of an incident, which never fails to be interesting if 
managed with the slightest address or dexterity. 

I may now confess, however, that the employment, 
though attended with great pleasure, was not without its 
doubts and anxieties. A lady, to whom I was nearly 
related, and with whom I lived, during her whole life, 
on the most brotherly terms of affection, was residing 
with me at the time when the work was in progress, 
and used to ask me, what I could possibly do to rise 
so early in the morning, (that happening to be the 
most convenient to me for composition.) At last I 
told her the subject of my meditations •, and I can never 



LADY OF THE LAKE. 6 

forget the anxiety and affection expressed in her reply. 
" Do not be so rash," she said, * my dearest cousin. 1 
You are already popular — more so, perhaps, than you 
yourself will believe, or than even I, or other partial 
friends, can fairly allow to your merit. You stand high 
— do not rashly attempt to climb higher, and incur the 
risk of a fall ; for, depend upon it, a favourite will not 
be permitted even to stumble with impunity.'" I re- 
plied to this affectionate expostulation in the words 
of Montrose — 

" He either fears his fate too much, 

Or his deserts are small, 
Who dares not put it to the touch 

To gain or lose it all." 

" If 1 fail," I said, for the dialogue is strong in my 
recollection, " it is a sign that I ought never to have 
succeeded, and I will write prose for life : you shall see 
no change in my temper, nor will I eat a single meal 
the worse. But if I succeed, 

Up with the honnie blue bonnet, 
The dirk, and the feather, and a' !" 

Afterwards I showed my affectionate and anxious 
critic the first canto of the poem, which reconciled her 
to my imprudence. Nevertheless, although I answered 
thus confidently, with the obstinacy often said to be 
proper to those who bear my surname, I acknowledge 
that my confidence was considerably shaken by the 

1 [The lady with whom Sir Walter Scott held this conversation, 
was ; no doubt, his aunt, Miss Christian Butherford ; there was no 
other female relation dead when this Introduction was written, 
whom I can suppose him to have consulted on literary questions. 
Lady Capulet, on seeing the corpse of Tybalt, exclaims, -~ 

" Tybalt, my cousin ! oh my brother's child !"■— Ed.] 



4 INTRODUCTION TO THE 

warning of her excellent taste and unbiassed friendship. 
Nor was I much comforted by her retractation of the 
unfavourable judgment, when I recollected how likely 
a natural partiality was to effect that change of opinion. 
In such cases, affection rises like a light on the canvass, 
improves any favourable tints which it formerly exhi- 
bited, and throws its defects into the shade. 

I remember that about the same time a friend started 
in to " heeze up my hope," like the " sportsman with 
his cutty gun,' 1 in the old song. He was bred a farmer, 
but a man of powerful understanding, natural good taste, 
and warm poetical feeling, perfectly competent to sup- 
ply the wants of an imperfect or irregular education. 
He was a passionate admirer of field-sports, which we 
often pursued together. 

As this friend happened to dine with me at Ashestiel 
one day, I took the opportunity of reading to him the 
first canto of " The Lady of the Lake," in order to as- 
certain the effect the poem was likely to produce upon 
a person who was but too favourable a representative of 
readers at large. It is, of course, to be supposed, that I 
determined rather to guide my opinion by what my 
friend might appear to feel, than by what he might 
think fit to say. His reception of my recitation, or pre- 
lection, was rather singular. He placed his hand across 
his brow, and listened with great attention through the 
whole account of the stag-hunt, till the dogs threw them- 
selves into the lake to follow their master, who embarks 
with Ellen Douglas. He then started up with a sudden 
exclamation, struck his hand on the table, and declared, 
in a voice of censure calculated for the occasion, that 
the dogs must have been totally ruined by being per- 
mitted to take the water after such a severe chase. I 
own I was much encouraged by the species of reverie 



LADY OF THE LAKE. 5 

which had possessed so zealous a follower of the sports 
of the ancient Nimrod, who had been completely sur- 
prised out of all doubts of the reality of the tale. An- 
other of his remarks gave me less pleasure. He detected 
^;he identity of the King with the wandering knight, 
Fitz-James, when he winds his bugle to summon his 
attendants. He was probably thinking of the lively, but 
somewhat licentious, old ballad, in which the denoue- 
ment of a royal intrigue takes place as follows : — 

" He took a bugle frae his side, 

He blew both loud and shrill, 
And four-and-twenty belted knights 

Came skipping ower the hill ; 
Then he took out a little knife, 

Let a' his duddies fa', 
And he was the brawest gentleman 

That was amang them a'. 

And we'll go no more a-roving," &c. 

This discovery, as Mr. Pepys says of the rent in his 
camlet cloak, was but a trifle, yet it troubled me ; and 
I was at a good deal of pains to efface any marks by 
which I thought my secret could be traced before the 
conclusion, when I relied on it with the same hope of 
producing effect, with which the Irish post-boy is said 
to reserve a " trot for the avenue." 

I took uncommon pains to verify the accuracy of the 
local circumstances of this story. I recollect, in parti- 
cular, that to ascertain whether I was telling a probable 
tale, I went into Perthshire, to see whether King James 
could actually have ridden from the banks of Loch Ven- 
nachar to Stirling Castle within the time supposed in 
the Poem, and had the pleasure to satisfy myself that it 
was quite practicable. 

After a considerable delay, " The Lady of the Lake" 



6 INTRODUCTION TO THE 

appeared in June, 1810 ; and its success was certainly 
so extraordinary as to induce me for the moment to con- 
clude that I had at last fixed a nail in the proverbially 
inconstant wheel of Fortune, whose stability in behalf 
of an individual who had so boldly courted her favours 
for three successive times had not as yet been shaken. 
I had attained, perhaps, that degree of reputation at 
which prudence, or certainly timidity, would have made 
a halt, and discontinued efforts by which I was far more 
likely to diminish my fame than to increase it. But, 
as the celebrated John Wilkes is said to have explained 
to his late Majesty, that he himself, amid his full tide of 
popularity, was never a Wilkite, so I can, with honest 
truth, exculpate myself from having been at any time a 
partisan of my own poetry, even when it was in the 
highest fashion with the million. It must not be sup- 
posed, that I was either so ungrateful, or so superabun- 
dantly candid, as to despise or scorn the value of those 
whose voice had elevated me so much higher than my 
own opinion told me I deserved. I felt, on the contrary, 
the more grateful to the public, as receiving that from 
partiality to me, which I could not have claimed from 
merit ; and I endeavoured to deserve the partiality, by 
continuing such exertions as I was capable of for their 
amusement. 

It may be that I did not, in this continued course of 
scribbling, consult either the interest of the public or my 
own. But the former had effectual means of defending 
themselves, and could, by their coldness, sufficiently 
check any approach to intrusion ; and for myself, I had 
now for several years dedicated my hours so much to 
literary labour, that I should have felt difficulty in em- 
ploying myself otherwise ; and so, like Dogberry, I gen- 
erously bestowed all my tediousness on the public 9 com- 



LADY OF THE LAKE. 7 

forting myself with the reflection, that if posterity should 
think me undeserving of the favour with which I was re- 
garded by my contemporaries, M they could not but say 
I had the crown," and had enjoyed for a time that popu- 
larity which is so much coveted. 

I conceived, however, that I held the distinguished 
situation I had obtained, however unworthily, rather 
like the champion of pugilism, 1 on the condition of being 
always ready to show proofs of my skill, than in the 
manner of the champion of chivalry, who performs his 
duties only on rare and solemn occasions. I was in any 
case conscious that I could not long hold a situation 
which the caprice, rather than the judgment, of the 
public, had bestowed upon me, and preferred being de- 
prived of my precedence by some more worthy rival, to 
sinking into contempt for my indolence, and losing my 
reputation by what Scottish lawyers call the negative 
prescription. Accordingly, those who choose to look at 
the Introduction to Rokeby, 2 will be able to trace the 
steps by which I declined as a poet to figure as a novel- 
ist ; as the ballad says, Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing- 
Cross to rise again at Queenhithe. 

It only remains for me to say, that, during my short 
pre-eminence of popularity, I faithfully observed the 
rules of moderation which I had resolved to follow 
before I began my course as a man of letters. If a man 
is determined to make a noise in the world, he is as 
sure to encounter abuse and ridicule, as he who gallops 

? [" In twice five years the ' greatest living poet/ 

Like to the champion in the fisty ring. 

Is called on to support his claim, or show it, 

Although 'tis an imaginary thing," &c. 

Don Juan, canto xi. st. 55.] 
2 [Poetical Works, vol. ix. 1834.] 



8 INTRODUCTION TO THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 

furiously through a village must reckon on being followed 
by the curs in full cry. Experienced persons know, that 
m stretching to flog the latter, the rider is very apt to 
catch a bad fall ; nor is an attempt to chastise a malig- 
nant critic attended with less danger to the author. On 
this principle, I let parody, burlesque, and squibs, find 
their own level ; and while the latter hissed most fiercely, 
I was cautious never to catch them up, as schoolboys do, 
to throw them back against the naughty boy who fired 
them off, wisely remembering that they are, in such 
cases, apt to explode in the handling. Let me add, that 
my reign 1 (since Byron has so called it) was marked by 
some instances of good-nature as well as patience. I 
never refused a literary person of merit such services in 
smoothing his way to the public as were in my power : 
and I had the advantage, rather an uncommon one 
with our irritable race, to enjoy general favour, without 
incurring permanent ill-will, so far as is known to me, 
among any of my contemporaries. 

W. S. 
Abbotsford, April, 1830. 



i [" Sir Walter reigned before me," &c. 

Don Juan, canto xi. st. 57.] 



LADY OF THE LAKE, 

A POEM, 

IN SIX CANTOS. 



TO 
THE MOST NOBLE 

JOHN JAMES 
MARQUIS OF ABERCORN, 

$C. #C\ $c. 

THIS POEM IS INSCRIBED 

BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



ARGUMENT. 



The Scene of the following Poem is laid chief y in the 
vicinity of Loch-Katrine, in tlie Western Highlands of Perth- 
shire. The time of Action includes Six Days, and tlie trans- 
actions of each Day occupy a Canto. 



[ 15 j 



THE 

LADY OF THE LAKE. 
CANTO FIRST. 



Harp of the North ! that mouldering long hast hung 

On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring, 
And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung, 1 

Till envious ivy did around thee cling, 
Muffling with verdant ringlet every string, — 

O Minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep ? 
Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring, 

Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep, 
Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep ? 

Not thus, in ancient days of Caledon, 
Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd, 

* [MS.— " And on the fitful breeze thy numbers flung, 
Till envious ivy, with her verdant ring, 
Mantled and muffled each melodious string, — 
Wizard Harp, still must thine accents sleep ? J 



16 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Ccmto I. 

When lay of hopeless love, or glory won, 
Aroused the fearful, or subdued the proud. 

At each according pause, was heard aloud 1 
Thine ardent symphony sublime and high ! 

Fair dames and crested chiefs attention bow'd ; 
For still the burden of thy minstrelsy 

Was Knighthood's dauntless deed, and Beauty's match- 
less eye. 

O wake once more ! how rude soe'er the hand 

That ventures o'er thy magic maze to stray ; 
O wake once more ! though scarce my skill command 

Some feeble echoing of thine earlier lay : 
Though harsh and faint, and soon to die away, 

And all unworthy of thy nobler strain, 
Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway, 

The wizard note has not been touch'd in vain. 
Then silent be no more ! Enchantress, wake again ! 



I. 

The stag at eve had drunk his fill, 
Where danced the moon on Monan's rill, 
And deep his midnight lair had made 
In lone Glenartney's hazel shade ; 
But, when the sun his beacon red 
Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head, 
The deep-mouth'd bloodhound's heavy bay 
Resounded up the rocky way, 2 

1 [_MS. — " At each according pause thou spok'st aloud 

Thine ardent sympathy."] 

2 [MS. — " The bloodhound's notes of heavy bass 

Resounded hoarsely up the- pass."] 



Canto I. THE CHASE. 

And faint, from farther distance borne, 
Were heard the clanging hoof and horn. 

II. 

As Chief, who hears his warder call, 

" To arms ! the foemen storm the wall," 

The antler'd monarch of the waste 

Sprang from his heathery couch in haste. 

But, ere his fleet career he took, 

The dew-drops from his flanks he shook ; 

Like crested leader proud and high, 

TossM his beam'd frontlet to the sky ; 

A moment gazed adown the dale, 

A moment snuffd the tainted gale, 

A moment listen'd to the cry, 

That thicken'd as the chase drew nigh ; 

Then, as the headmost foes appear'd, 

With one brave bound the copse he clear'd, 

And, stretching forward free and far, 

Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var. 1 

III. 

Yelled on the view the opening pack ; 
Hock, glen, and cavern, paid them back ; 
To many a mingled sound at once 
The awaken'd mountain gave response. 
A hundred dogs bay'd deep and strong, 
Clatter'd a hundred steeds along, 
Their peal the merry horns rung out, 
A hundred voices join'd the shout ; 



1 Sec Appendix, Note A. 



18 THE LADY OP THE LAKE. Canto /. 

With hark and whoop and wild halloo, 
No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew. 1 
Far from the tumult fled the roe, 
Close in her covert cower'd the doe, 
The falcon, from her cairn on high, 
Cast on the rout a wondering eye, 
Till far beyond her piercing ken 
The hurricane had swept the glen. 
Faint, and more faint, its failing din 
Return 'd from cavern, cliff, and linn, 
And silence settled, wide and still, 
On the lone wood and mighty hill. 

IV. 

Less loud the sounds of silvan war 
Disturb 'd the heights of Uam-Var, 
And roused the cavern, where, 'tis told, 
A giant made his den of old ; 
For ere that steep ascent was won, 
High in his pathway hung the sun, 
And many a gallant, stay'd perforce, 
Was fain to breathe his faltering horse, 
And of the trackers of the deer, 
Scarce half the lessening pack was near ; 
So shrewdly on the mountain side, 
Had the bold burst their mettle tried. 

V. 

The noble stag was pausing now, 
Upon the mountain's southern brow, 

1 [Benvoirlich, a mountain comprehended in the cluster of the 
Grampions, at the head of the valley of the Garry, a river which 
springs from its base. It rises to an elevation of 3330 feet above 
theleyelofthe sea.] 



Canto I. THE CHASE. 1 9 

Where broad extended, far beneath, 
The varied realms of fair Menteith. 
With anxious eye he wander'd o'er 
Mountain and meadow, moss and moor, 
And ponder'd refuge from his toil, 
By far Lochard x or Aberfoyle. 
But nearer was the copsewood grey, 
That waved and wept on Loch-Achray, 
And mingled with the pine-trees blue 
On the bold cliffs of Ben venue. 
Fresh vigour with the hope return , d, 2 
With flying foot the heath he spurn'd, 
Held westward with unwearied race, 
And left behind the panting chase. 

VI. 

'Twere long to tell what steeds gave o'er, 
As 8 wept the hunt through Cambus-more -, 3 
What reins were tighten'd in despair, 
When rose Benledi's ridge in air ; 4 
Who flagg'd upon Bochastle's heath, 
Who shunn'd to stem the flooded Teith — - 5 

1 See Appendix, Note B. 

2 [MS. — " Fresh vigour with the thought return'd, 

With flying hoof the heath he spurn 'd."] 

3 [Cambus-more, within about two milea of Callender, en the 
wooded banks of the Keltie, a tributary of the Teith, is the seat 
of a family of the name of Buchanan, whom the poet frequently 
visited in his younger days.] 

4 [Benledi is a magnificont mountain, 3009 feet in height, which 
bounds the horizon on the north-west from Callender. The name, 
according to Celtic etymologists, signifies the Mountain of God.~\ 

5 [Two mountain streams, the one flowing from Loch Voil, by 
the pass of Leny ; the other from Loch Katrine, by Loch Achray 
and Loch Vennachar, unite at Callender, and the river thus formed 
thenceforth takes the name of Teith. Hence the designation of 
the territory of Menteith."~\ 



20 THE LADY OP THE LAKE. Canto I. 

For twice that day, from shore to shore, 
The gallant stag swam stoutly o'er. 
Few were the stragglers, following far, 
That reached the lake of Vennachar ; 
And when the Brigg of Turk was won, 1 
The headmost horseman rode alone. 

VII. 

Alone, but -with unbated zeal, 
That horseman plied the scourge and steel •, 
For jaded now, and spent with toil, 
Emboss'd with foam, and dark with soil, 
While every gasp with sobs he drew, 
The labouring stag strain 'd full in view. 
Two dogs of black Saint Hubert's breed, 
Unmatch'd for courage, breath, and speed, 2 
Fast on his flying traces came, 
* And all but won that desperate game •, 
For, scarce a spear's length from his haunch, 
Vindictive toil'd the bloodhounds stanch ; 
Nor nearer might the dogs attain, 
Nor farther might the quarry strain. 
Thus up the margin of the lake, 
Between the precipice and brake, 
O'er stock and rock their race they take. 

VIII. 

The Hunter mark'd that mountain high, 
The lone lake's western boundary, 
And deem'd the stag must turn to bay, 
Where that huge rampart barr'd the way ; 



1 See Appendix, Note C. 

2 See Appendix, Note D. 



Canto I. THE CHASE. 21 

Already glorying in the prize, 
Measured his antlers with his eyes ; 
For the death-wound and death-halloo, 
Muster'd his breath, his whinyard drew ; — 1 
But thundering as he came prepared, 
With ready arm and weapon bared, 
The wily quarry shunn'd the shock, 
And turn'd him from the opposing rock ; 
Then, dashing down a darksome glen, 
Soon lost to hound and hunter's ken, 
In the deep Trosachs' 2 wildest nook 
His solitary refuge took. 
There, while close couch'd, the thicket shed 
Cold dews and wild-flowers on his head, 
He heard the baffled dogs in vain 
Rave through the hollow pass amain, 
Chiding the rocks that yell'd again. 

IX. 

Close on the hounds the hunter came, 
To cheer them on the vanish 'd game ; 
But, stumbling in the rugged dell, 
The gallant horse exhausted fell. 
The impatient rider strove in vain 
To rouse him with the spur and rein, 
For the good steed, his labours o'er, 
Stretch 'd his stiff limbs, to rise no more ; 
Then, touch 'd with pity and remorse, 
He sorrow'd o'er the expiring horse. 
" I little thought, when first thy rein 
I slack'd upon the banks of Seine, 

* See Appendix, Note E. 

2 [" The term Trosachs signifies the rough or bristled territory." 
—Graham.] 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Cailto I. 

That Highland eagle e'er should feed 
On thy fleet limbs, my matchless steed ! 
Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day, 
That costs thy life, my gallant grey !" 

X. 

Then through the dell his horn resounds, 
From vain pursuit to call the hounds. 
Back limp'd, with slow and crippled pace, 
The sulky leaders of the chase ; 
Close to their master's side they press'd, 
With drooping tail and humbled crest ; 
But still the dingle's hollow throat 
Prolong'd the swelling bugle-note. 
The owlets started from their dream, 
The eagles answer'd with their scream, 
Round and around the sounds were cast, 
Till echo seem'd an answering blast ; 
And on the hunter hied his way, 1 
To join some comrades of the day ; 
Yet often paused, so strange the road, 
So wondrous were the scenes it show'd. 

XL 

The western waves of ebbing day 
Roll'd o'er the glen their level way ; 
Each purple peak, each flinty spire, 
Was bathed in floods of living fire. 
But not a setting beam could glow 
Within the dark ravines below, 
Where twined the path in shadow hid, 
Round many a rocky pyramid, 

1 [MS.—" And on the hunter hied his pace, 

To meet some comrades of the chase.*~\ 



Canto /. THE CHASE. 23 

Shooting abruptly from the dell 
Its thunder-splinter'd pinnacle ; 
Round many an insulated mass, 
The native bulwarks of the pass, 1 
Huge as the tower which builders vain 
Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain. 2 
The rocky summits, split and rent, 
Form'd turret, dome, or battlement, 
Or seem'd fantastically set 
With cupola or minaret, 
Wild crests as pagod ever deck'd, 
Or mosque of Eastern architect. 
Nor were these earth-born castles bare, 3 
Nor lack'd they many a banner fair ; 
For, from their shiver'd brows display 'd, 
Far o'er the unfathomable glade, 
All twinkling with the dewdrops sheen, 4 
The brier-rose fell in streamers green, 
And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes, 
Waved in the west- wind's summer sighs. 

XII. 

Boon nature scatter'd, free and wild, 
Each plant or flower, the mountain's child. 
Here eglantine embalm 'd the air, 
Hawthorn and hazel mingled there ; 
The primrose pale and violet flower, 
Found in each cliff a narrow bower ; 
Fox-glove and night-shade, side by side, 
Emblems of punishment and pride, 

i [MS.—" The mimic castles of the pass."] 

2 [The Tower of Babel.— Genesis, xi. 1—9.] 

s fMS. — "Nor were these mighty bulwarks bare."] 

* [MS.—" Bright glistening with the dewdrops sheen."] 



24 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto I. 

Group 'd their dark hues with every stain 
The weather-beaten crags retain, 
With boughs that quaked at every breath, 
Grey birch and aspen wept beneath *, 
Aloft, the ash and warrior oak 
Cast anchor in the rifted rock ; 
And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung 
His shatter'd trunk, and frequent flung,* 
Where seem'd the cliffs to meet on high, 
His boughs athwart the narrow'd sky. 
Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, 
Where glist'ning streamers waved and danced, 
The wanderer's eye could barely view 
The summer heaven's delicious blue ; 
So wondrous wild, the whole might seem 
The scenery of a fairy dream. 

XIII. 

Onward, amid the copse 'gan peep 
A narrow inlet, still and deep, 
Affording scarce such breadth of brim, 2 
As served the wild-duck's brood to swim. 
Lost for a space, through thickets veeiing, 
But broader when again appearing, 
Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face 
Could on the dark-blue mirror trace ; 
And farther as the hunter stray 'd, 
Still broader sweep its channels made. 

i [MS. — " His scathed trunk, and frequent flung, 
Where seem'd the cliffs to meet on high, 
His rugged arms athwart the sky. 
Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, 
Where twinkling streamers waved and danced."] 

2 [MS. — " Affording scarce such breadth of flood, 
As served to float the wild-duck's brood."] 



Canto I. THE CHASE. 25 

The shaggy mounds no longer stood, 
Emerging from entangled wood, 1 
But, wave- encircled, seem'd to float, 
Like castle girdled with its moat •, 
Yet broader floods extending still 
Divide them from their parent hill, 
Till each, retiring, claims to be 
An islet in an inland sea. 

XIV. 

And now, to issue from the glen, 

No pathway meets the wanderer's ken, 

Unless he climb, with footing nice, 

A far projecting precipice. 2 

The broom's tough roots his ladder made, 

The hazel saplings lent their aid ; 

And thus an airy point he won, 

Where, gleaming with the setting sun, 

One burnish'd sheet of living gold, 

Loch Katrine lay beneath him roll'd, 5 

In all her length far winding lay, 

With promontory, creek, and bay, 

And islands that, empurpled bright, 

Floated amid the livelier light, 

And mountains, that like giants stand, 

To sentinel enchanted land. 

i [MS.—" Emerging dry-shod from the wood."] 

2 Until the present road was made through the romantic pass 
•which I have presumptuously attempted to describe in the prece- 
ding stanzas, there was no mode of issuing out of the defile, called 
the Trosachs, excepting by a sort of ladder, composed of the 
branches and roots of trees. 

3 [Loch-Ketturin is the Celtic pronunciation. In his Notes to 
The Fair Maid of Perth, the Author has signified his belief that 
the lake was named after the Catterins, or wild robbers, who 
haunted its shores.") 



26 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto l. 

High on the south, huge Ben venue 1 
Down on the lake in masses threw 
Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurl'd, 
The fragments of an earlier world ; 
A wildering forest feather'd o'er 
His ruin'd sides and summit hoar, 2 
While on the north, through middle air, 
Ben-an 3 heaved high his forehead bare. 

XV. 

From the steep promontory gazed 4 

The stranger, raptured and amazed. 

And, " What a scene were here," he cried, 

" For princely pomp, or churchman's pride ! 

On this bold brow, a lordly tower ; 

In that soft vale, a lady's bower ; 

On yonder meadow, far away, 

The turrets of a cloister grey ; 

How blithely might the bugle-horn 

Chide, on the lake, the lingering morn ! 

How sweet, at eve, the lover's lute 

Chime, when the groves were still and mute ! 

And, when the midnight moon should lave 

Her forehead in the silver wave, 

How solemn on the ear would come 

The holy matins' distant hum, 



i [Benvenue— is literally the little mountain— i. e. as contrasted 
with Benledi and Benlomond.] 
2 [MS. — " His ruin'd sides and fragments hoar, 

While on the north to middle air."] 
s [According to Graham, Ben-an, or Bennan, is a mere diminu- 
tive of Ben — Mountain.] 

4 [MS. — " From the high promontory gazed 

The stranger, awestruck and amazed."! 



Canto I. THE CHASE. 27 

While the deep peal's commanding tone 
Should wake in yonder islet lone, 
A sainted hermit from his cell, 
To drop a bead with every knell — 
And bugle, lute, and bell, and all, 
Should each bewilder'd stranger call 
To friendly feast, and lighted hall. 1 

XVI. 

" Blithe were it then to wander here ! 
But now, — beshrew yon nimble deer, — 
Like that same hermit's, thin and spare, 
The copse must give my evening fare ; 
Some mossy bank my couch must be, 
Some rustling oak my canopy. 2 
Yet pass we that ; the war and chase 
Give little choice of resting-place ; — 
A summer night, in green-wood spent, 
Were but to-morrow's merriment : 
But hosts may in these wilds abound, 
Such as are better miss'd than found ; 
To meet with Highland plunderers here 
Were worse than loss of steed or deer. — ? 
I am alone ;— my bugle-strain 
May call some straggler of the train ; 
Or, fall the worst that may betide, 
Ere now this falchion has been tried." 



i [MS.—" To hospitable feast and hall."] 
2 [MS. — " And hollow trunk of some old tree, 
My chamber for the night must &e."] 
s See Appendix, Note F. 



28 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto I. 

XVII. 

But scarce again his horn he wound, 1 

When lo ! forth starting at the sound, 

From underneath an aged oak, 

That slanted from the islet rock, 

A damsel guider of its way, 

A little skiff shot to the bay, 2 

That round the promontory steep 

Led its deep line in graceful sweep, 

Eddying, in almost viewless wave, 

The weeping willow twig to lave, 

And kiss, with whispering sound and slow, 

The beech of pebbles bright as snow. 

The boat had touched the silver strand, 

Just as the Hunter left his stand, 

And stood conceal'd amid the brake, 

To view this Lacjy of the Lake. 

The maiden paused, as if again 

She thought to catch the distant strain. 

With head up-raised, and look intent, 

And eye and ear attentive bent, 

And locks flung back, and lips apart, 

Like monument of Grecian art, 

In listening mood, she seem'd to stand, 

The guardian Naiad of the strand. 



i LMS.— " The bugle shrill again he wound, 

And lo! forth starting at the sound."] 

2 LMS.—" A little skiff shot to the bay. 
The hunter left his airy stand, 
And when the boat had touch'd the sand, 
Conceal'd he stood amid the brake, 
To view this Lady of the Lake." 



Canto I. THE CHASE. 29 

XVIII. 

And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace 1 

A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace, 

Of finer form, or lovelier face ! 

What though the sun, with ardent frown, 

Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown, 

The sportive toil, which, short and light, 
Had dyed her glowing hue so bright, 
Served too in hastier swell to show 
Short glimpses of a breast of snow : 
What though no rule of courtly grace 
To measured mood had train'd her pace, — 
A foot more light, a step more true, 
Ne'er from the heath-flower dash'd the dew ; 
E'en the slight harebell raised its head, 
Elastic from her airy tread : 
What though upon her speech there hung 
The accents of the mountain tongue, — 2 
Whose silver sounds, so soft, so dear, 
The list'ner held his breath to hear ! 

XIX. 

A Chieftain's daughter seem'd the maid ; 
Her satin snood, 3 her silken plaid, 
Her golden brooch such birth betray'd. 
And seldom was a snood amid 
Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid, 
Whose glossy black to shame might bring 
The plumage of the raven's wing ; 

1 [MS. — " A finer form, a fairer face, 

Had never marble Nymph or Grace, 
That boasts the Grecian chisel's trace. "J 

2 [MS. — " The accents of a stranger tongue."] 

3 [See Note post, on Canto iii. stanza v.] 



30 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto I. 

And seldom o'er a breast so fair, 
Mantled a plaid with modest care, 
And never brooch the folds combined 
Above a heart more good and kind. 
Her kindness and her worth to spy, 
You need but gaze on Ellen's eye ; 
Not Katrine, in her mirror blue, 
Gives back the shaggy banks more true, 
Than every free-born glance confess'd 
The guileless movements of her breast \ 
Whether joy danced in her dark eye, 
Or woe or pity claim'd a sigh, 
Or filial love was glowing there, 
Or meek devotion pour'd a prayer, 
Or tale of injury called forth 
The indignant spirit of the North. 
One only passion unreveal'd, 
With maiden pride the maid conceal'd, 
Yet not less purely felt the flame ; — 

need I tell that passion's name ! 

XX. 

Impatient of the silent horn, 

Now on the gale her voice was borne : — 

" Father ! " she cried ; the rocks around 

Loved to prolong the gentle sound. 

A while she paused, no answer came, — x 

" Malcolm, was thine the blast ? " the name 

1 [MS. — " A space she paused, no answer came, — 

' Alpine, was thine the blast ? ' the name 
Less resolutely utter'd fell, 
The echoes could not catch the swell. 
' Nor foe nor friend, the stranger said, 
Advancing from the hazel shade. 



Canto I. THE- CHASE. 

Less resolutely utter'd fell, 
The echoes could not catch the swell. 
" A stranger I," the Huntsman said, 
Advancing from the hazel shade. 
. The maid, alarm'd, with hasty oar, 
Push'd her light shallop from the shore, 
And when a space was gain'd between, 
Closer she drew her bosom's screen ; 
(So forth the startled swan would swing, 1 
So turn to prune his ruffled wing.) 
Then safe, though flutter'd and amazed, 
She paused, and on the stranger gazed. 
Not his the form, nor his the eye, 
That youthful maidens wont to fly. 

XXI. 

On his bold visage middle age 

Had slightly press'd its signet sage, 

Yet had not quenched the open truth 

And fiery vehemence of youth ; 

Forward and frolic glee was there, 

The will to do, the soul to dare, 

The sparkling glance, soon blown to fire, 

Of hasty love, or headlong ire. 

His limbs were cast in manly mould, 

For hardy sports or contest bold ; 

And though in peaceful garb array 'd, 

And weaponless, except his blade, 

His stately mien as well implied 

A high-born heart, a martial pride, 

The startled maid, with hasty oar, 
Push'd her light shallop from the shore."] 
i [MS.—" So o'er the lake the swan would spring, 
Then turn to prune its ruffled wing."] 



32 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto I. 

As if a Baron's crest he wore, 

And sheathed in armour trode the shore. 

Slighting the petty need he show'd, 

He told of his benighted road ; 

His ready speech flow'd fair and free, 

In phrase of gentlest courtesy ; 

Yet seem'd that tone, and gesture bland, 

Less used to sue than to command. 

XXII. 

A while the maid the stranger eyed, 
And, reassured, at length replied, 
That Highland halls were open still l 
To wilder'd wanderers of the hill. 
" Nor think you unexpected come 
To yon lone isle, our desert home ; 
Before the heath had lost the dew, 
This morn, a couch was pull'd for you ; 
On yonder mountain's purple head 
Have ptarmigan and heath-cock bled, 
And our broad nets have swept the mere, 
To furnish forth your evening cheer. ' ' — 
" Now, by the rood, my lovely maid, 
Your courtesy has err'd," he said ; 
" No right have I to claim, misplaced, 
The welcome of expected guest. 
A wanderer, here by fortune tost, 
My way, my friends, my courser lost, 
I ne'er before, believe me, fair, 
Have ever drawn your mountain air, 
Till on this lake's romantic strand, 2 

1 found a fay in fairy land ! " — 

i [MS. — " Her father? hall was open still."] 

2 [MS. — " Till on this lake's enchanting strand."] 



Canto I. THE CHASE. 33 

XXIII. 

" I well believe," the maid replied, 

As her light skiff appioach'd the side,— . 

" I well believe, that ne'er before 

Your foot has trod Loch Katrine's shore ; 

But yet, as far as yesternight, 

Old Allan-bane foretold your plight, — 

A grey-hair'd sire, whose eye intent 

Was on the vision'd future bent. 1 

He saw your steed, a dappled grey, 

Lie dead beneath the birchen way ; 

Painted exact your form and mien, 

Your hunting suit of Lincoln green, 

That tassell'd horn so gaily gilt, 

That falchion's crooked blade and hilt, 

That cap with heron plumage trim, 

And yon two hounds so dark and grim. 

He bade that all should ready be, 

To grace a guest of fair degree ; 

But light I held his prophecy, 

And deem'd it was my father's horn, 

Whose echoes o'er the lake were borne."— 

XXIV. 

The stranger smiled : " Since to your home 
A destined errant-knight I come, 
Announced by prophet sooth and old, 
Doom'd, doubtless, for achievement bold, 
I'll lightly front each high emprise, 
For one kind glance of those bright eyes. 

i [MS.—" Is often on the future bent"] 
See Appendix, Note G. 



34 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto I. 

Permit me, first, the task to guide 

Your fairy frigate o'er the tide." 

The maid, with smile suppress'd and sly, 

The toil unwonted saw him try ; 

For seldom sure, if e'er before, 

His noble hand had grasp'd an oar : * 

Yet with main strength his strokes he drew, 

And o'er the lake the shallop flew ; 

With heads erect, and whimpering cry, 

The hounds behind their passage ply. 

Nor frequent does the bright oar break 

The darkening mirror of the lake, 

Until the rocky isle they reach, 

And moor their shallop on the beach. 



XXV. 

The Stranger view'd the shore around ; 
'Twas all so close with copsewood bound, 
Nor track nor pathway might declare 
That human foot frequented there, 
Until the mountain-maiden show'd 
A clambering unsuspected road, 
That winded through the tangled screen, 
And open'd on a narrow green, 
Where weeping birch and willow round 
With their long fibres swept the ground. 
Here, for retreat in dangerous hour, 
Some chief had framed a rustic bower. 2 



i [MS.—" This gentle hand had grasp'd an oar : 

Yet with main strength the oars he drew " 
2 See Appendix, Note H. 






Canto /. THE CHASE. 35 

XXVI. 

It was a lodge of ample size, 

But strange of structure and device ; 

Of such materials, as around 

The workman's hand had readiest found. 

Lopp'd of their boughs, their hoar trunks bared, 

And by the hatchet rudely squared, 

To give the walls their destined height, 

The sturdy oak and ash unite ; 

While moss and clay and leaves combined 

To fence each crevice from the wind. 

The lighter pine-trees, over-head, 

Their slender length for rafters spread, 

And wither'd heath and rushes dry 

Supplied a russet canopy. 

Due westward, fronting to the green, 

A rural portico was seen, 

Aloft on native pillars borne, 

Of mountain fir with bark unshorn, 

Where Ellen's hand had taught to twine 

The ivy and Idaean vine, 

The clematis, the favour'd flower 

Which boasts the name of virgin-bower, 

And every hardy plant could bear 

Loch Katrine's keen and searching air. 

An instant in this porch she staid, 

And gaily to the Stranger said, 

" On heaven and on thy lady call, 

And enter the enchanted hall !" — 

XXVII. 

" My hope, my heaven, my trust must be 
My gentle guide, in following thee.'", — 



36 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto I. 

He cross'd the threshold — and a clang 
Of angry steel that instant rang. 
To his bold brow his spirit rush'd, 
But soon for vain alarm he blush 'd, 
When on the floor he saw display 'd, 
Cause of the din, a naked blade 
Dropp'd from the sheath, that careless flung 
Upon a stag's huge antlers swung ; 
For all around, the walls to grace, 
Hung trophies of the fight or chase : 
A target there, a bugle here, 
A battle-axe, a hunting spear, 
And broadswords, bows, and arrows store, 
With the tusk'd trophies of the boar. 
Here grins the wolf as when he died, 1 
And there the wild-cat's brindled hide 
The frontlet of the elk adorns, 
Or mantles o'er the bison's horns ; 
Pennons and flags defaced and stain'd, 
That blackening streaks of blood retain'd, 
And deer-skins, dappled, dun, and white, 
With otter's fur and seal's unite, 
In rude and uncouth tapestry all, 
To garnish forth the silvan hall. 

XXVIII. 

The wondering Stranger round him gazed, 
And next the fallen weapon raised : — 
Few were the arms whose sinewy strength 
Sufficed to stretch it forth at length. 

1 [MS. — " Here grins the wolf as when he died, 
There hung the wild-cat's brindled hide, 
Above the elk's branch'd brow and skull, 
And frontlet of the forest bull."] 



Canto I. THE CHASE. 37 

And as the brand he poised and sway'd, 

" I never knew but one," he said, 

" Whose stalwart arm might brook to wield 

A blade like this in battle-field.'" 

She sigh'd, then smiled and took the word ; 

" You see the guardian champion's sword : 

As light it trembles in his hand, 

As in my grasp a hazel wand ; 

My sire's tall form might grace the part 

Of Ferragus, or Ascabart •, * 

But in the absent giant's hold 

Are women now, and menials old." 

XXIX. 

The mistress of the mansion came, 

Mature of age, a graceful dame ; 

Whose easy step and stately port 

Had well become a princely court, 

To whom, though more than kindred knew, 

Young Ellen gave a mother's due. 2 

Meet welcome to her guest she made, 

And every courteous rite was paid, 

That hospitality could claim, 

Though all unask'd his birth and name. 3 

Such then the reverence to a guest, 

That fellest foe might join the feast, 

1 [See Appendix, Note I.] 

B [MS.—" To whom, though more remote her claim, 
Young Ellen gave a mother's name."] 
8 The Highlanders, who carried hospitality to a punctilious ex- 
cess, are said to have considered it as churlish, to ask a stranger 
his name or lineage, before he had taken refreshment. Feuds were 
so frequent among them, that a contrary rule would in many cases 
have produced the discovery of some circumstance, which might 
have excluded the guest from the benefit of the assistance he stood 
in need of. 



38 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto /« 

And from his deadliest foemaiTs door 

Unquestion'd turn, the banquet o'er. 

At length his rank the stranger names, 

" The Knight of Snowdoun, James Fitz- James ; 

Lord of a barren heritage, 

Which his brave sires, from age to age, 

By their good swords had held with toil ; 

His sire had fall'n in such turmoil, 

And he, God wot, was forced to stand 

Oft for his right with blade in hand. 

This morning with Lord Moray's train 

He chased a stalwart stag in vain, 

Outstripped his comrades, miss'd the deer, 

Lost his good steed, and wander'd here." 

XXX. 

Fain would the Knight in turn require 
The name and state of Ellen's sire. 
Well show'd the elder lady's mien, 1 
That courts and cities she had seen ; 
Ellen, though more her looks display \1 2 
The simple grace of silvan maid, 
In speech and gesture, form and face, 
Show'd she was come of gentle race ; 
Twere strange in ruder rank to find 
Such looks, such manners, and such mind. 

1 [MS. — " Well show'd the mother's easy mien."] 

2 [MS. — " Ellen, though more her looks betray'd 

The simple heart of mountain maid, 
In speech and gesture, form and grace, 
Show'd she was come of gentle race ; 
'Twas strange, in birth so rude to find 
Such face, such manners, and such mind. 
Each anxious hint the stranger gave, 
The mother heard with silence grave."] 



Canto I. THE CHASE. 39 

Each hint the Knight of Snowdoun gave, 
Dame Margaret heard with silence grave ; 
Or Ellen, innocently gay, 
Turn'd all enquiry light away : — 
" Weird women we ! by dale and down 
We dwell, afar from tower and town. 
We stem the flood, we ride the blast, 
On wandering knights our spells we cast ; 
While viewless minstrels touch the string, 
Tis thus our charm 'd rhymes we sing." 
She sung, and still a harp unseen 
Fill'd up the symphony between. 1 

XXXI. 

" Soldier, rest ! thy warfare o'er, 

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking : 
Dream of battled fields no more, 

Days of danger, nights of waking. 
In our isle's enchanted hall, 

Hands unseen thy couch are strewing, 
Fairy strains of music fall, 

Every sense in slumber dewing. 
Soldier, rest ! thy warfare o'er : 
Dream of fighting fields no more : 
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, 
Morn of toil, nor night of waking. 2 

" No rude sound shall reach thine ear, 
Armour's clang, or war-steed champing, 

1 See Appendix, Note K. 

2 [MS. — " Noon of hunger, night of waking. 

No rude sound shall rouse thine ear."] 



40 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto L 

Trump nor pibroch summon here 

Mustering clan, or squadron tramping. 

Yet the lark's shrill fife may come 
At the day-break from the fallow, 

And the bittern sound his drum, 
Booming from the sedgy shallow. 

Ruder sounds shall none be near, 

Guards nor warders challenge here, 

Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing 

Shouting clans or squadrons stamping. 1 ' 

XXXII. 

She paused — then, blushing, led the lay. 1 
To grace the stranger of the day. 
Her mellow notes awhile prolong 
The cadence of. the flowing song, 
Till to her lips in measured frame 
The minstrel verse spontaneous came. 



<g>0ns tnutmuetf. 

" Huntsman, rest ! thy chase is done, 

While our slumbrous spells assail ye, 2 
Dream not, with the rising sun, 

Bugles here shall sound reveille. 
Sleep, the deer is in his den ; 

Sleep ! thy hounds are by thee lying ; 
Sleep ! nor dream in yonder glen, 

How thy gallant steed lay dying. 



[MS.—" She paused— but waked again the lay."] 

- [MS. — ( " Slumber sweet our spells shall deal ye, 

"j Let our slumbrous spells ( avail ye, 
v (. beguile ye. ] 



Canto I. THE- CHASE. 41 

Huntsman, rest ; thy chase is done, 
Think not of the rising sun, 
For at dawning to assail ye, 
Here no bugles sound reveilleV' 

XXXIII. 

The hall was clear'd—the stranger's bed 

Was there of mountain heather spread, 

Where oft a hundred guests had lain, 

And dream'd their forest sports again. 1 

But vainly did the heath-flower shed 

Its moorland fragrance round his head ; 

Not Ellen's spell had lull'd to rest 

The fever of his troubled breast. 

In broken dreams the image rose 

Of varied perils, pains, and woes ; 

His steed now flounders in the brake, 

Now sinks his barge upon the lake ; 

Now leader of a broken host, 

His standard falls, his honour's lost. 

Then, — from my couch may heavenly might 

Chase that worst phantom of the night ! — 

Again return'd the scenes of youth, 

Of confident undoubting truth ; 

Again his soul he interchanged 

With friends whose hearts were long estranged. 

They come, in dim procession led, 

The cold, the faithless, and the dead ; 

As warm each hand, each brow as gay, 

As if they parted yesterday. 

And doubt distracts him at the view, 

O were his senses false or true ! 

i J.MS.— " And dream'd their mountain chase again."} 



42 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Cdllto I. 

Dream'd he of death, or broken vow, 
Or is it all a vision now I 1 

XXXIV. 

At length, with Ellen in a grove 

He seem'd to walk, and speak of love ; 

She listen'd with a blush and sigh, 

His suit was warm, his hopes were high. 

He sought her yielded hand to clasp, 

And a cold gauntlet met his grasp : 

The phantom's sex was changed and gone, 

Upon its head a helmet shone ; 

Slowly enlarged to giant size, 

With darken'd cheek and threatening eyes, 

The grisly visage, stern and hoar, 

To Ellen still a likeness bore 

He woke, and, panting with affright, 
Recall'd the vision of the night. 
The hearth's decaying brands were red, 
And deep and dusky lustre shed, 

J [" Ye guardian spirits, to whom man is dear, 

From these foul demons shield the midnight gloom : 
Angels of fancy and of love, be near, 

And o'er the blank of sleep diffuse a bloom : 
Evoke the sacred shades of Greece and Rome, 

And let them virtue with a look impart ; 
But chief, awhile, O ! lend us from the tomb 

Those long-lost friends for whom in love we smart, 
And fill with pious awe and joy-mixt woe the heart. 

" Or are you sportive ? — bid the morn of youth 

Rise to new light, and beam afresh the days 
Of innocence, simplicity, and truth ; 

To cares estranged, and manhood's thorny ways. 
What transport, to retrace our boyish plays, 

Our easy bliss, when each thing joy supplied ; 
The woods, the mountains, and the warbling maze 

Of the wild brooks \" -Castle of Indolence, Canto 1.1 



Canto T. THE CHASE. 43 

Half showing, half concealing, all 
The uncouth trophies of the hall. 
Mid those the Stranger fix'd his eye, 
Where that huge falchion hung on high, 
And thoughts on thoughts, a countless thror.g, 
Rush'd, chasing countless thoughts along, 
Until, the giddy whirl to cure, 
He rose, and sought the moonshine pure. 

XXXV. 

The wild-rose, eglantine, and broom, 1 

Wasted around their rich perfume : 

The birch -trees wept in fragrant balm, 

The aspens slept beneath the calm ; 

The silver light, with quivering glance, 

PlayM on the water's still expanse, — 

Wild were the heart whose passions 1 sway 

Could rage beneath the sober ray ! 

He felt its calm, that warrior guest, 

While thus he communed with his breast : — 

" Why is it, at each turn I trace 

Some memory of that exiled race ? 

Can I not mountain-maiden spy, 

But she must bear the Douglas eye ? 

Can I not view a Highland brand, 

But it must match the Douglas hand ? 



l [MS.-" Play'd on{* he J * 01 ? of } he J^ e > 

(.Loch Katrine s still expanse ; 

The birch, the wild-rose, and the broom, 

Wasted around their rich perfume . . . , 

The birch-trees wept in balmy dew ; 

The aspen slept on Benvenue ; 

Wild were the heart whose passions' power 

Defied the influence of the hour.""] 



44 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto I. 

Can I not frame a fever'd dream, 
But still the Douglas is the theme ? — 
I'll dream no more — by manly mind 
Not even in sleep is will resign 'd. 
My midnight orisons said o'er, 
I'll turn to rest, and dream no more." 
His midnight orisons he told, 
A prayer with every bead of gold, 
Consign'd to heaven his cares and woes, 
And sunk in undisturb'd repose ; 
Until the heath-cock shrilly crew, 
And morning dawn'd on Benvenue. 






I 



[ 45 ] 



LADY OF THE LAKE. 

CANTO SECOND. 



C^e fcffanft, 
I. 

At mom the black-cock trims his jetty wing, 

'Tis morning prompts the linnet's blithest lay, 
All Nature's children feel the matin spring 

Of life reviving, with reviving day ; 
And while yon little bark glides down the bay, 

Wafting the stranger on his way again, 
Morn's genial influence roused a minstrel grey, 

And sweetly o'er the lake was heard thy strain, 
Mix'd with the sounding harp, O white hair'd Allanban 






IL 

" Not faster yonder rowers' might 
Flings from their oars the spray, 
Not faster yonder rippling bright, 
That tracks the shallop's course in light, 
Melts in the lake away, 

i See Appendix, Note L. 



46 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto IT. 

Than men from memory erase 

The benefits of former days ; 

Then, Stranger, go ! good speed the while, 

Nor think again of the lonely isle. 

" High place to thee in royal court, 

High place in battle line, 
Good hawk and hound for silvan sport, 
Where beauty sees the brave resort, 1 

The honour'd meed be thine ! 
True be thy sword, thy friend sincere, 
Thy lady constant, kind, and dear, 
And lost in love and friendship's smile 
Be memory of the lonely isle. 



JS>0njj nmttnurtr. 
in. 

" But if beneath yon southern sky 

A plaided stranger roam, 
Whose drooping crest and stifled sigh, 
And sunken cheek and heavy eye, 

Pine for his Highland home ; 
Then, warrior, then be thine to show 
The care that soothes a wanderer's woe ; 
Remember then thy hap ere while, 
A stranger in the lonely isle. 

" Or if on life's uncertain main 
Mishap shall mar thy sail ; 
If faithful, wise, and brave in vain, 
Woe, want, and exile thou sustain 

Beneath the fickle gale ; 
Waste not a sigh on fortune changed, 
On thankless courts, or friends estranged, 

1 LMS. — " At tourneys where the brave resort.''] 






Canto IT. the island. 47 

But come where kindred worth shall smile, 
To greet thee in the lonely isle." 

IV. 

As died the sounds upon the tide. 
The shallop reach M the mainland side, 
And ere his onward way he took, 
The stranger cast a lingering look, 
Where easily his eye might reach 
The Harper on the islet beach, 
Reclined against a blighted tree, 
As wasted, grey, and worn as he. 
To minstrel meditation given, 
His reverend brow was raised to heaven, 
As from the rising sun to claim 
A sparkle of inspiring flame. 
His hand, reclined upon the wire, 
SeenTd watching the awakening fire ; 
So still he sate, as those who wait 
Till judgment speak the doom of fate ; 
So still, as if no breeze might dare 
To lift one lock of hoary hair ; 
So still, as life itself were fled, 
In the last sound his harp had sped. 

V. 

Upon a rock with lichens wild, 

Beside him Ellen sate and smiled. 

Smiled she to see the stately drake 
Lead forth his fleet upon the lake, 
While her vex'd spaniel, from the beach, 
Bay'd at the prize beyond his reach ? 
Yet tell me, then, the maid who knows, 
Why deepenM on her cheek the rose ?— ,. 



48 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto If. 

Forgive, forgive, Fidelity ! 
Perchance the maiden smiled to see 
Yon parting lingerer wave adieu, 
And stop and turn to wave anew ; 
And, lovely ladies, ere your ire 
Condemn the heroine of my lyre, 
Show me the fair would scorn to spy, 
And prize such conquest of her eye ! 



VI. 

While yet he loiter'd on the spot, 
It seem'd as Ellen mark'd him not ; 
But when he turn'd him to the glade, 
One courteous parting sign she made ; 
And after, oft the knight would say, 
That not when prize of festal day 
Was dealt him by the brightest fair, 
Who e'er wore jewel in her hair, 
So highly did his bosom swell, 
As at that simple mute farewell. 
Now with a trusty mountain-guide, 
And his dark stag-hounds by his side, 
He parts — the maid, unconscious still, 
Watch 'd him wind slowly round the hill ; 
But when his stately form was hid, 
The guardian in her bosom chid — 
"Thy Malcolm ! vain and selfish maid : 
'Twas thus upbraiding conscience said, — 
" Not so had Malcolm idly hung 
On the smooth phrase of southern tongue ; 
Not so had Malcolm strain 'd his eye, 
Another step than thine to spy. 1 

i [MS. — " The loveliest Lowland fair to spy.**] 









Canto II. THE ISLAND. 49 

Wake, Allan-bane," aloud she cried, 
To the old Minstrel by her side, — 
" Arouse thee from thy moody dream ! 
Ill give thy harp heroic theme, 
And warm thee with a noble name ; 
Pour forth the glory of the Graeme !" 1 
Scarce from her lip the word had rush VI, 
When deep the conscious maiden blush 'd ; 
For of his clan, in hall and bower, 
Young Malcolm Graeme was held the flower. 

VII. 

The Minstrel waked his harp — three times 

Arose the well-known martial chimes, 

And thrice their high heroic pride 

In melancholy murmurs died. 

" Vainly thou bid'st, O noble maid, 

Clasping his wither'd hands, he said, 

" Vainly thou bid'st me wake the strain, 

Though all unwont to bid in vain. 

Alas ! than mine a mightier hand 

Has tuned my harp, my strings has spann'd ! 

I touch the chords of joy, but low 

And mournful answer notes of woe ; 

And the proud march, which victors tread, 

Sinks in the wailing for the dead. 

O well for me, if mine alone 

That dirge's deep prophetic tone ! 

If, as my tuneful fathers said, 

This harp, which erst Saint Modan sway'd, 2 

Can thus its master's fate foretell, 

Then welcome be the minstrel's knell ! 

1 See Appendix, Note M. 

2 See Appendix, Note N. 



50 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto II. 

VIII. 

" But ah ! dear lady, thus it sigh'd 

The eve thy sainted mother died ; 

And such the sounds which, while I strove 

To wake a lay of war or love, 

Came marring all the festal mirth, 

Appalling me who gave them birth, 

And disobedient to my call, 

Wail'd loud through Bothwell's banner'd hall, 

Ere Douglasses, to ruin driven, 1 

Were exiled from their native heaven 

Oh ! if yet worse mishap and woe, 
My master's house must undergo, 
Or aught but weal to Ellen fair, 
Brood in these accents of despair, 
No future bard, sad Harp ! shall fling 
Triumph or rapture from thy string ; 
One short, one final strain shall flow, 
Fraught with unutterable woe, 
Then shiver'd shall thy fragments lie, 
Thy master cast him down and die !" 

IX. 

Soothing she answer'd him, " Assuage, 
Mine honour'd friend, the fears of age ; 
All melodies to thee are known, 
That harp has rung, or pipe has blown, 
In Lowland vale or Highland glen, 
From Tweed to Spey — what marvel, then, 
At times, unbidden notes should rise, 
Confusedly bound in memory's ties, 



1 See Appendix. Note 0. 



Canto II THE ISLAND. 51 

Entangling, as they rush along, 

The war-march with the funeral song ? — 

Small ground is now for boding fear ; 

Obscure, but safe, we rest us here. 

My sire, in native virtue great, 

Resigning lordship, lands, and state, 

Not then to fortune more resign 'd, 

Than yonder oak might give the wind ; 

The graceful foliage storms may reave, 

The noble stem they cannot grieve. 

For me,"— she stoop 'd, and, looking round, 

Pluck'd a blue hare-bell from the ground* — 

" For me, whose memory scarce conveys 

An image of more splendid days, 

This little flower, that loves the lea, 

May well my simple emblem be ; 

It drinks heaven's dew as blithe as rose l 

That in the King's own garden grows •, 

And when I place it in my hair, 

Allan, a bard is bound to swear 

He ne'er saw coronet so fair." 

Then playfully the chaplet wild 

She wreath 'd in her dark locks, and smiled. 

X. 

Her smile, her speech, with winning sway, 
Wiled the old harper's mood away. 
With such a look as hermits throw, 
When angels stoop to soothe their woe, 
He gazed, till fond regret and pride 
Thrill'd to a tear, then thus replied : 

1 [MS.— " No blither dew-dxop cheers the rose."] 



52 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto II, 

" Loveliest and best ! thou little know'st 
The rank, the honours, thou hast lost ! 
O might I live to see thee grace, 
In Scotland's court, thy birth-right place, 
To see my favourite's step advance, 1 
The lightest in the courtly dance, 
The cause of every gallant's sigh, 
And leading star of every eye, 
And theme of every minstrel's art, 
The Lady of the Bleeding Heart !" 2 






XL 
" Fair dreams are these," the maiden cried, 
(Light was her accent, yet she sigh'd,) 
" Yet is this mossy rock to me 
Worth splendid chair and canopy ; 3 
Nor would my footsteps spring more gay 
In courtly dance than blithe strathspey, 
Nor half so pleased mine ear incline 
To royal minstrel's lay as thine. 
And then for suitors proud and high, 
To bend before my conquering eye, 
Thou, flattering bard ! thyself wilt say, 
That grim Sir Roderick owns its sway. 
The Saxon scourge, Clan- Alpine's pride, 
The terror of Loch-Lomond's side, 
Would, at my suit, thou know'st, delay 
A Lennox foray — for a day." — 



* [This couplet is not in the MS.] 

2 The well-known cognizance of the Douglas family. 

3 [MS.—" This mossy rock, my friend, to me 

Is worth gay chair and canopy."] 



Canto IT. THE ISLAND. S3 

XII. 

The ancient bard his glee repress'd : 

" 111 hast thou chosen theme for jest ! 

For who, through all this western wild, 

Named Black Sir Roderick e'er, and smiled ! 

In Holy-Rood a knight he slew ; 1 

I saw, when back the dirk he drew, 

Courtiers give place before the stride 

Of the undaunted homicide ; 2 

And since, though outlaw'd, hath his hand 

Full sternly kept his mountain land. 

Who else dared give — ah ! woe the day, 3 

That I such hated truth should say — 

The Douglas, like a stricken deer, 

Disown'd by every noble peer, 4 

Even the rude refuge we have here ? 

Alas, this wild marauding Chief 

Alone might hazard our relief, 

And now thy maiden charms expand, 

Looks for his guerdon in thy hand ; 

Full soon may dispensation sought, 

To back his suit, from Rome be brought. 

Then, though an exile on the hill, 

Thy father, as the Douglas, still 

Be held in reverence and fear ; 

And though to Roderick thou'rt so dear, 

That thou might'st guide with silken thread, 

Slave of thy will, this chieftain dread ; 

i See Appendix, Note P. 

2 [MS. — " Courtiers give place with heartless stride 

Of the retiring homicide."] 

3 [MS.—" Who else dared own the kindred claim 

That bound him to thy mother's name ? 
Who else dared give," &c] 

4 See Appendix, Note Q. 



54 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto II. 

Yet, O loved maid, thy mirth refrain ! 
Thy hand is on a lion's mane." — 

XIII. 

" Minstrel," the maid replied, and high 
Her father's soul glanced from her eye, 
w My debts to Roderick's house I know : 
All that a mother could bestow, 
To Lady Margaret's care I owe, 
Since first an orphan in the wild 
She sorrow'd o'er her sister's child ; 
To her brave chieftain son, from ire 
Of Scotland's king who shrouds my sire, 
A deeper, holier debt is owed ; 
And, could I pay it with my blood, 
Allan ! Sir Roderick should command 
My blood, my life, — but not my hand. 
Rather will Ellen Douglas dwell 
A votaress in Maronnan's cell ; * 
Rather through realms beyond the sea, 
Seeking the world's cold charity, 
Where ne'er was spoke a Scottish word, 
And ne'er the name of Douglas heard, 
An outcast pilgrim will she rove, 
Than wed the man she cannot love. 

XIV. 

" Thou shak'st, good friend, thy tresses grey — 
That pleading look, what can it say 

1 The parish of Kilmaronock, at the eastern extremity of Loch- 
Lomond, derives its name from a cell or chapel, dedicated to Saint 
Maronoch, or Marnoch, or Maronnan, about whose sanctity very 
little is now remembered. There is a fountain devoted to him in 
the same parish ; but its virtues, like the merits of its patron, have 
fallen into oblivion. 



Canto II. THE ISLAND. 55 

But what I own ? — I grant him brave, 
But wild as Bracklinn's thundering wave •, x 
And generous — save vindictive mood, 
Or jealous transport, chafe his blood : 
I grant him true to friendly band, 
As his claymore is to his hand ; 
But O ! that very blade of steel 
No mercy for a foe would feel : 
I grant him liberal, to fling 
Among his' clan the wealth they bring, 
When back by lake and glen they wind, 
And in the Lowland leave behind, 
Where once some pleasant hamlet stood, 
A mass of ashes slaked with blood. 
The hand that for my father fought, 
I honour, as his daughter ought ; 
But can I clasp it reeking red, 
From peasants slaughter^ in their shed ? 
No! wildly while his virtues gleam, 
They make his passions darker seem, 
And flash along his spirit high. 
Like lightning o'er the midnight sky. 
While yet a child, — and children know, 
Instinctive taught, the friend and foe, — 
I shudder'd at his brow of gloom, 
His shadowy plaid, and sable plume ; 
A maiden grown, I ill could bear 
His haughty mien and lordly air : 

1 This is a beautiful cascade made by a mountain stream called 
the Keltie, at a place called the Bridge of Bracklinn, about a mile 
from the village of Callender, in Menteith, Above a chasm., where 
the brook precipitates itself from a height of at least fifty feet, there 
is thrown, for the convenience of the neighbourhood, a rustic foot- 
bridge, of about three feet in breadth, and without ledges, which 
is scarcely to be crossed by a stranger without awe and apprehen- 
sion. 



56 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto IL 

But, if thou join'st a suitor's claim, 

In serious mood, to Roderick's name, 

I thrill with anguish ! or, if e'er 

A Douglas knew the word, with fear. 

To change such odious theme were best, — 

What think'st thou of our stranger guest ?"-*- 

XV. 

" What think I of him ? — woe the while 

That brought such wanderer to our isle ! 

Thy father's battle-brand, of yore 

For Tine-man forged by fairy lore, 1 

What time he leagued, no longer foes, 

His Border spears with Hotspur's bows, 

Did, self-unscabbarded, foreshow 

The footstep of a secret foe. 2 

If courtly spy hath harbour'd here, 

What may we for the Douglas fear ? 

What for this island, deem'd of old 

Clan- Alpine's last and surest hold ? 

If neither spy nor foe, I pray 

What yet may jealous Roderick say ? 

— Nay, wave not thy disdainful head, 

Bethink thee of the discord dread, 

That kindled when at Beltane game 

Thou ledst the dance with Malcolm Graeme ; 

Still, though thy sire the peace renew'd, 

Smoulders in Roderick's breast the feud ; 

Beware ! — But hark, what sounds are these ? 

My dull ears catch no faltering breeze, 

No weeping birch, nor aspens wake, 

Nor breath is dimpling in the lake, 

1 See Appendix, Note R. 
^ See Appendix, Note S; 



Canto IT. the island. 57 

Still is the cannaV hoary beard, 
Yet, by my minstrel faith, I heard — 
And hark again ! some pipe of war 
Sends the bold pibroch from afar." 

XVI. 

Far up the lengthen'd lake were spied 
Four darkening specks upon the tide, 
That, slow enlarging on the view, 
Four mann'd and masted barges grew, 
And, bearing downwards from Glengyle, 
Steer'd full upon the lonely isle ; 
The point of Brianchoil they pass'd, 
And, to the windward as they cast, 
Against the sun they gave to shine 
The bold Sir Roderick's banner'd Pine. 
Nearer and nearer as they bear, 
Spear, pikes, and axes flash in air. 
Now might you see the tartans brave, 
And plaids and plumage dance and wave : 
Now see the bonnets sink and rise, 
As his tough oar the rower plies ; 
See, flashing at each sturdy stroke, 
The wave ascending into smoke ; 
See the proud pipers on the bow, 
And mark the gaudy streamers flow 
From their loud chanters 2 down, and sweep 
The furrow'd bosom of the deep, 
As, rushing through the lake amain, 
They plied the ancient Highland strain. 

1 Cotton-grass. 
2 The pipe of the bagpipe. 



53 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. CtUlto II, 

XVII. 

Ever, as on they bore, more loud 

And louder rung the pibroch proud. 

At first the sound, by distance tame, 

Mellow 'd along the waters came, 

And, lingering long by cape and bay 

Wail'd every harsher note away, 

Then bursting bolder on the ear, 

The clan's shrill Gathering they could hear ; 

Those thrilling sounds, that call the might 

Of old Clan- Alpine to the fight. 1 

Thick beat the rapid notes, as when 

The mustering hundreds shake the glen, 

And hurrying at the signal dread, 

The batter'd earth returns their tread. 

Then prelude light, of livelier tone, 

Express'd their merry marching on, 

Ere peal of closing battle rose, 

With mingled outcry, shrieks, and blows ; 

And mimic din of stroke and ward, 

As broadsword upon target jarr'd ; 

And groaning pause, ere yet again 

Condensed, the battle yell'd amain ; 

The rapid charge, the rallying shout, 

Retreat borne headlong into rout, 

And bursts of triumph, to declare 

Clan- Alpine's conquest — all were there. 

Nor ended thus the strain ; but slow 

Sunk in a moan prolong'd and low, 

And changed the conquering clarion swell, 

For wild lament o'er those that fell. 

i See Appendix, Note T. 



Cwnio II. THE ISLAND. 59 

XVIII. 

The war-pipes ceased ; but lake and hill 
Were busy with their echoes still ; 
And, when they slept, a vocal strain 
Bade their hoarse chorus wake again, 
While loud a hundred clansmen raise 
Their voices in their Chieftain's praise. 
Each boatman, bending to his oar, 
With measured sweep the burden bore, 
In such wild cadence, as the breeze 
Makes through December's leafless trees. 
The chorus first could Allan know, 
" Roderick Vich Alpine, ho ! iro !" 
And near, and nearer as they row'd, 
Distinct the martial ditty flow'd. 

XIX. 

3S0at &anQ. 

Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances ! 

Honour 'd and bless'd be the ever-green Pine ! 
Long may the tree, in his banner that glances, 
Flourish, the shelter and grace of our line ! 
Heaven send it happy dew 
Earth lend it sap anew, 
Gaily to bourgeon, and broadly to grow, 
While every Highland glen- 
Sends our shout back agen, 
"Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho ! ieroe I" 1 

Ours is no sapling, chance-sown by the fountain, 
Blooming at Beltane, in winter to fade ; 

1 See Appendix, Note U. 



60 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto £1. 

When the whiriwind has stripp'd every leaf on the 

mountain, 
The more shall Clan- Alpine exult in her shade. 

Moor'd in the rifted rock, 

Proof to the tempest's shock, 
Firmer he roots him the ruder it blow ; 

Menteith and Breadalbane, then, 

Echo his praise agen, 
" Roderich Vich Alpine dhu, ho ! ieroe !" 

XX. 

Proudly our pibroch has thrill'd in Glen Fruin, 

And Bannochar's groans to our slogan replied ; 
Glen Luss and Ross-dhu, they are smoking in ruin, 
And the best of Loch-Lomond lie dead on her side, i 

Widow and Saxon maid 

Long shall lament our raid, 
Think of Clan- Alpine with fear and with woe ; 

Lennox and Leven-glen 

Shake when they hear agen, 
" Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho ! ieroe ! 

Row, vassals, row, for the pride of the Highlands ! 

Stretch to your oars, for the ever-green Pine ! 
O ! that the rose-bud that graces yon islands, 

Were wreathed in a garland around him to twine ! 
O that some seedling gem, 
Worthy such noble stem, 
Honour'd and bless'd in their shadow might grow 1 
Loud should Clan- Alpine then 
Ring from the deepest glen, 
" Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho ! ieroe !" 

i See Appendix, Note V. 



Canto II. THE ISLAND. Gl 

XXI. 

With all her joyful female band, 

Had Lady Margaret sought the strand. 

Loose on the breeze their tresses flew, 

And high their snowy arms they threw, 

As echoing back with shrill acclaim, 

And chorus wild, the Chieftain's name -, 1 

While prompt to please, with mother's art, 

The darling passion of his heart, 

The Dame called Ellen to the strand, 

To greet her kinsman ere he land : 

" Come, loiterer, come ! a Douglas thou, 

And shun to wreathe a victor's brow ?" — 

Reluctantly and slow, the maid 

The unwelcome summoning obey'd, 

And, when a distant bugle rung, 

In the mid-path aside she sprung : — 

u List, Allan-bane ! From mainland cast, 

I hear my father's signal blast. 

Be ours," she cried, " the skiff to guide, 

And waft him from the mountain-side." 

Then, like a sunbeam, swift and bright, 

She darted to her shallop light, 

And, eagerly while Roderick scann'd, 

For her dear form, his mother's band, 

The islet far behind her lay, 

And she had landed in the bay. 

XXII. 

Some feelings are to mortals given, 
With less of earth in them than heaven : 
And if there be a human tear 
From passion's dross refined and clear, 
i L" The chorus to thechieftain's/am€."] 



62 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto II- 

A tear so limpid and so meek, 

It would not stain an angel's cheek, 

Tis that which pious fathers shed 

Upon a duteous daughter's head ! 

And as the Douglas to his breast 

His darling Ellen closely press'd, 

Such holy drops her tresses steep'd, 

Though 'twas an hero's eye that weep'd. 

Nor while on Ellen's faltering tongue 1 

Her filial welcomes crowded hung, 

Mark'd she, that fear (affection's proof) 

Still held a graceful youth aloof \ 

No ! not till Douglas named his name, 

Although the youth was Malcolm Graeme. 

XXIII. 

Allan, with wistful look the while, 

Mark'd Roderick landing on the isle ; 

His master piteously he eyed, 

Then gazed upon the Chieftain's pride, 

Then dash'd, with hasty hand, away 

From his dimm'd eye the gathering spray ; 

And Douglas, as his hand he laid 

On Malcolm's shoulder, kindly said, 

" Canst thou, young friend, no meaning spy 

In my poor follower's glistening eye ? 



1 [MS. — " Nor while on Ellen's faltering tongue 
Her filial greetings eager hung, 
Mark'd not that awe (affection's proof) 
Still held yon gentle youth aloof ; 
No ! not till Douglas named his name, 
Although the youth was Malcolm Graeme. 
Then withjlush'd cheek and downcast eye, 
Their greeting was confused and shy.'"] 



Canto II. THE ISLAND. 63 

I'll tell thee : — lie recalls the day, 
When in my piaise he led the lay 
O'er the arch'd gate of Both well proud, 
While many a minstrel answer'd loud, 
When Percy's Norman pennon, won 
In bloody field, before me shone, 
And twice ten knights, the least a name 
As mighty as yon Chief may claim, 
Gracing my pomp, behind me came. 
Yet trust me, Malcolm, not so proud 
Was I of all that marshall'd crowd, 
Though the waned crescent own'd my might, 
And in my train troop'd lord and knight, 
Though Blantyre hyinn'd her holiest lays, 
And Bothwell's bards flung back my praise, 
As when this old man's silent tear, 
And this poor maid's affection dear, 
A welcome give more kind and true, 
Than aught my better fortunes knew. 
Forgive, my friend, a father's boast, 
O ! it out-beggars all I lost !'' 

XXIV. 

Delightful praise ! — like summer rose, 
That brighter in the dew-drop glows, 
The bashful maiden's cheek appear'd, 
For Douglas spoke, and Malcolm heard. 
The flush of shame-faced joy to hide, 
The hounds, the hawk, her cares divide ; 
The loved caresses of the maid 
The dogs with crouch and whimper paid :/ 
And, at her whistle, on her hand 
The falcon took his favourite stand, 

i [MS.—" The dogs with tvhimpering mtes repaid."^ 



64 THE LADY OP THE LAKE. Canto II. 

Closed his dark wing, relaxed his eye, 
Nor, though unhooded, sought to fly. 
And, trust, while in such guise she stood* 
Like fabled Goddess of the Wood, 1 
That if a father's partial thought 
O'erweigh'd her worth, and beauty aught, 
Well might the lover's judgment fail 
To balance with a juster scale ; 
For with each secret glance he stole, 
The fond enthusiast sent his soul. 

XXV. 

Of stature tall, and slender frame, 
But firmly knit, was Malcolm Graeme. 
The belted plaid and tartan hose 
Did ne'er more graceful limbs disclose ; 
His flaxen hair, of sunny hue, 
Curl'd closely round his bonnet blue. 
Train 'd to the chase, his eagle eye 
The ptarmigan in snow could spy : 
Each pass, by mountain, lake, and heath, 
He knew, through Lennox and Menteith ; 
Vain was the bound of dark-brown doe, 
When Malcolm bent his sounding bow, 
And scarce that doe, though wing'd with fear, 
Outstripp'd in speed the mountaineer : 
Right up Ben-Lomond could he press, 
And not a sob his toil confess. 
His form accorded with a mind 
Lively and ardent, frank and kind ; 
A blither heart, till Ellen came, 
Did never love nor sorrow tame ; 

J [MS.— "Like fabled huntress of the wood."] 



Canto IT. the island. 65 

It danced as lightsome in his breast, 
As play'd the feather on his crest. 
Yet friends, who nearest knew the youth, 
His scorn of wrong, his zeal for truth, 
And bards, who saw his features bold, 
When kindled by the tales of old, 
Said, were that youth to manhood grown, 
Not long should Roderick Dhu's renown 
Be foremost voiced by mountain fame, 
But quail to that of Malcolm Graeme, 

XXVI. 

Now back they wend their watery way, 
And, " O my sire !" did Ellen say, 
" Why urge thy chase so far astray ? 
And why so late return 'd ? And why" — 
The rest was in her speaking eye. 
" My child, the chase I follow far, 
'Tis mimicry of noble war ; 
And with that gallant pastime reft 
Were all of Douglas I have left, 
I met young Malcolm as I stray'd 
Far eastward, in Glenfmlas' shade, 
Nor stray 'd I safe ; for, all around, 
Hunters and horsemen scour'd the ground. 
This youth, though still a royal ward, 
Risk'd life and land to be my guard, 
And through the passes of the wood 
Guided my steps, not unpursued ; 
And Roderick shall his welcome make, 
Despite old spleen, for Douglas' sake. 
Then must he seek Strath-Endrick glen, 
Nor peril aught for me agen." 



Q6 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. CtUltO II. 

XXVII. 

Sir Roderick, who to meet them came, 
Redden'd at sight of Malcolm Graeme, 
Yet, not in action, word, or eye, 
Fail'd aught in hospitality. 
In talk and sport they whiled away 
The morning of that summer day ; 
But at high noon a courier light 
Held secret parley with the knight, 
Whose moody aspect soon declared, 
That evil were the news he heard. 
Deep thought seem'd toiling in his head ; 
Yet was the evening banquet made, 
Ere he assembled round the flame, 
His mother, Douglas, and the Graeme, 
And Ellen, too ; then cast around 
His eyes, then fixed them on the ground, 
As studying phrase that might avail 
Best to convey unpleasant tale. 
Long with his dagger's hilt he play'd, 
Then raised his haughty brow, and said : 

XXVIII. 

" Short be my speech ; — nor time affords, 
Nor my plain temper, glozing words. 
Kinsman and father, — if such name 
Douglas vouchsafe to Roderick's claim ; 
Mine honoured mother ; — Ellen — why, 
My cousin, turn away thine eye ? — 
And Graeme ; in whom I hope to know 
Full soon a noble friend or foe* 
When age shall give thee thy command, 
And leading in thy native land, — 



Canto II. THE ISLAND. 67 

List all ! — The King's vindictive pride 

Boasts to have tamed the Border-side, 1 

Where chiefs, with hound and hawk who came 

To share their monarch's silvan game, 

Themselves in bloody toils were snared ; 

And when the banquet they prepared, 

And wide their loyal portals flung, 

O'er their own gateway struggling hung. 

Loud cries their blood from Meggat's mead, 

From Yarrow braes, and banks of Tweed, 

Where the lone streams of Ettrick glide, 

And from the silver Teviot's side ; 

The dales, where martial clans did ride, 2 

Are now one sheep-walk, waste and wide. 

This tyrant of the Scottish throne, 

So faithless, and so ruthless known, 

Now hither comes *, his end the same, 

The same pretext of silvan game. 

What grace for Highland Chiefs, judge ye, 

By fate of Border chivalry. 3 

Yet more ; amid Glenfinlas green, 

Douglas, thy stately form was seen. 

This by espial sure I know ; 

Your counsel in the streight I show." 

XXIX. 

Ellen and Margaret fearfully 
Sought comfort in each other's eye, 
Then turn'd their ghastly look, each one, 
This to her sire, that to her son. 

1 See Appendix, Note W. 

2 [MS. — " The dales where clans were wont to bide."] 

3 See Appendix, Note X. 



68 THE LADY OP THE LAKE. Canto II. 

The hasty colour went and came 

In the bold cheek of Malcolm Graeme ; 

But from his glance it well appear 'd, 

Twas but for Ellen that he fear'd ; 

While, sorrowful, but undismay'd, 

The Douglas thus his counsel said : 

" Brave Roderick, though the tempest roar, 

It may but thunder and pas3 o'er ; 

Nor will I here remain an hour, 

To draw the lightning on thy bower ; 

For well thou know'st, at this grey head 

The royal bolt were fiercest sped. 

For thee, who, at thy king's command, 

Canst aid him with a gallant band, 

Submission, homage, humbled pride, 

Shall turn the Monarch's wrath aside. 

Poor remnants of the Bleeding Heart, 

Ellen and I will seek, apart, 

The refuge of some forest cell, 

There, like the hunted quarry, dwell, 

Till on the mountain and the moor, 

The stern pursuit be pass'd and o'er."- — 

XXX. 

" No, by mine honour," Roderick said, 

" So help me, Heaven, and my good blade ! 

No, never ! Blasted be yon Pine, 

My father's ancient crest and mine, 

If from its shade in danger part 

The lineage of the Bleeding Heart ! 

Hear my blunt speech : grant me this maid 

To wife, thy counsel to mine aid ; 

To Douglas, leagued with Roderick Dhu, 

Will friends and allies flock enow ; 



Canto II. THE ISLAND. G3 

Like cause of doubt, distrust, and grief, 
Will bind to us each Western Chief. 
When the loud pipes my bridal tell, 
The Links of Forth shall hear the knell, 
The guards shall start in Stirling's porch \ 
And, when I light the nuptial torch, 
A thousand villages in flames, 
Shall scare the slumbers of King James ! 
~ Nay, Ellen, blench not thus away, 
And, mother, cease these signs, I pray ; 

I meant not all my heart might say 

Small need of inroad, or of fight, 
When the sage Douglas may unite 
Each mountain clan in friendly band, 
To guard the passes of their land, 
Till the foil'd king, from pathless glen, 1 
Shall bootless turn him home agen." 

XXXL 

There are who have, at midnight hour, 

In slumber scaled a dizzy tower, 

And, on the verge that beetled o'er 

The ocean tide's incessant roar, 

Dream'd calmly out their dangerous dream, 2 

Till waken'd by the morning beam ; 

When, dazzled by the eastern glow, 

Such startler cast his glance below, 

And saw unmeasured depth around, 

And heard unintermitted sound, 

And thought the battled fence so frail, . 

It waved like cobweb in the gale ; — 



i [MS.— " Ti 
\ £MS.— " Di 



— " Till the foil'd king, from hill and glen."] 

Dream'd calmly out their desperate dream."] 



70 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto II. 

Amid his senses' giddy wheel, 

Did he not desperate impulse feel, 

Headlong to plunge himself below, 

And meet the worst his fears foreshow ? — 

Thus, Ellen, dizzy and astound, 

As sudden ruin yawn'd around, 

By crossing terrors wildly toss'd, 

Still for the Douglas fearing most, 

Could scarce the desperate thought withstand, 

To buy his safety with her hand. 

XXXII. 

Such purpose dread could Malcolm spy 

In Ellen's quivering lip and eye, 

And eager rose to speak — but ere 

His tongue could hurry forth his fear, 

Had Douglas mark'd the hectic strife, 

Where death seem'd combating with life ; 

For to her cheek, in feverish flood, 

One instant rush'd the throbbing blood, 

Then ebbing back, with sudden sway, 

Left its domain as wan as clay. 

" Roderick, enough ! enough ! " he cried, 

" My daughter cannot be thy bride ; 

Not that the blush to wooer dear, 

Nor paleness that of maiden fear. 

It may not be — forgive her, Chief, 

Nor hazard aught for our relief. 

Against his sovereign, Douglas ne'er 

Will level a rebellious spear. 

'Twas I that taught his youthful hand 

To rein a steed and wield a brand ; 

I see him yet, the princely boy ! 

Not Ellen more my pride and joy ; 






CantQ II. THE ISLAND. 71 

I love him still, despite my wrongs, 
By hasty wrath, and slanderous tongues. 
O seek the grace you well may find, 
Without a cause to mine combined.'" 

XXXIII. 

Twice through the hall the Chieftain strode ; 
The waving of his tartans broad, 
And darken'd brow, where wounded pride 
With ire and disappointment vied, 
Seem'd, by the torch's gloomy light, 
Like the ill Demon of the night, 
Stooping his pinions' shadowy sway 
Upon the nighted pilgrim's way : 
But, unrequited Love ! thy dart 
Plunged deepest its envenom'd smart, 
And Roderick, with thine anguish stung, 
At length the hand of Douglas wrung, 
While eyes, that mock'd at tears before, 
With bitter drops were running o'er. 
The death-pangs of long-cherish 'd hope 
Scarce in that ample breast had scope, 
But, struggling with his spirit proud, 
Convulsive heaved its chequer'd shroud, 
While every sob — so mute were all — 
Was heard distinctly through the hall. 
The son's despair, the mother's look, 
111 might the gentle Ellen brook ; 
She rose, and to her side there came, 
To aid her parting steps, the Graeme. 

XXXIV. 

Then Roderick from the Douglas broke— 
As flashes flame through sable smoke, 



72 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Cardo II. 

Kindling its wreaths, long, dark, and low, 
To one broad blaze of ruddy glow, 
So deep the anguish of despair 1 
Burst, in fierce jealousy, to air. 
With stalwart grasp his hand he laid 
On Malcolm's breast and belted plaid : 
" Back, beardless boy ! " he sternly said, 
" Back, minion ! hold'st thou thus at nought 
The lesson I so lately taught ? 
This roof, the Douglas, and that maid, 
Thank thou for punishment delay 'd." 
Eager as greyhound on his game, 
Fiercely with Roderick grappled Graeme. 
" Perish my name, if aught afford 
Its Chieftain safety save his sword ! " 
Thus as they strove, their desperate hand 2 
Griped to the dagger or the brand, 
And death had been — but Douglas rose, 
And thrust between the struggling foes 
His giant strength : — " Chieftains, forego ! 

I hold the first who strikes, my foe 3 

Madmen, forbear your frantic jar ! 
What ! is the Douglas falPn so far, 
His daughter's hand is doomM the spoil 
Of such dishonourable broil ! " 

1 [MS. — " The deep-toned anguish of despair 

Flush' d, in fierce jealousy, to air."] 

2 [MS. — " Thus as they strove, each better hand 

Grasp'd for the dagger or the brand."} 
3 The Author has to apologize for the inadvertent appropriation 
of a whole line from the tragedy of Douglas, 

" I hold the first who strikes, my foe." 
[Note to the second edition.] 



Canto II. THE ISLAND. 73 

Sullen and slowly, they unclasp, 1 

As struck with shame, their desperate grasp, 

And each upon his rival glared, 

With foot advanced, and blade half bared. 

XXXV. 

Ere yet the brands aloft were flung, 
Margaret on Roderick's mantle hung, 
And Malcolm heard his Ellen's scream, 
As falter 'd through terrific dream. 
Then Roderick plunged in sheath his sword, 
And veil'd his wrath in scornful word. 
" Rest safe till morning ; pity 'twere 
Such cheek should feel the midnight air ! 2 
Then may est thou to James Stuart tell, 
Roderick will keep the lake and fell, 
Nor lackey, with his freeborn clan, 
The pageant pomp of earthly man. 
More would he of Clan-xilpine know, 

Thou canst our strength and passes show 

Malise, what ho ! " — his henchman came ^ 3 
" Give our safe-conduct to the Grarnie." 
Young Malcolm answer 'd, calm and bold, 
" Fear nothing for thy favourite hold \ 
The spot an angel deigned to grace, 
Is bless'd, though robbers haunt the place. 
Thy churlish courtesy for those 
Reserve, who fear to be thy foes. 
As safe to me the mountain way 
At midnight as in blaze of day, 

1 [MS. — " Sullen and slow the rivals bold 

Loosed at his hest their desperate hold, 
But either still on other glared," &c.J 

2 See Appendix, Note Y. 

3 See Appendix, Note Z. 



74 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto II. 

Though with his boldest at his back, 
Even Roderick Dhu beset the track.— 
Brave Douglas, — lovely Ellen, — nay, 
Nought here of parting will I say. 
Earth does not hold a lonesome glen, 
So secret, but we meet agen. — 
Chieftain ! we too shall find an hour," — 
He said, and left the silvan bower. 

XXXVI. 

Old Allan follow'd to the strand, 
(Such was the Douglas's command,) 
And anxious told, how, on the morn, 
The stern Sir Roderick deep had sworn, 
The Fiery Cross should circle o'er 
Dale, glen, and valley, down, and moor. 
Much were the peril to the Graeme, 
From those who to the signal came ; 
Far up the lake 'twere safest land, 
Himself would row him to the strand. 
He gave his counsel to the wind, 
While Malcolm did, unheeding, bind, 
Round dirk and pouch and broadsword roll'd, 
His ample plaid in tight en'd fold, 
And stripp'd his limbs to such array, 
As best might suit the watery way, — 

XXXVII. 

Then spoke abrupt : " Farewell to thee, 
Pattern of old fidelity ! " 
The Minstrel's hand he kindly press'd,-^. 
" O ! could I point a place of rest ! 
My sovereign holds in ward my land, 
My uncle leads my vassal band ; 



Canto II. THE ISLAND. 75 

To tame his foes, his friends to aid, 
Poor Malcolm has but heart and blade. 
Yet, if there be one faithful Graeme, 
Who loves the Chieftain of his name, 
Not long shall honour'd Douglas dwell, 
Like hunted stag, in mountain cell ; 
Nor, ere yon pride-swoll'n robber dare,— 
I may not give the rest to air ! 
Tell Roderick Dhu, I owed him nought, 
Not the poor service of a boat, 
To waft me to yon mountain-side." 
Then plunged he in the flashing tide \ l 
Bold o'er the flood his head he bore, 
And stoutly steer'd him from the shore •, 
And Allan strain'd his anxious eye, 
Far 'mid the lake his form to spy. 
Darkening across each puny wave, 
To which the moon her silver gave, 
Fast as the cormorant could skim, 
The swimmer plied each active limb ; 
Then landing in the moonlight dell, 
Loud shouted of his weal to tell. 
The Minstrel heard the far halloo, 
And joyful from the shore withdrew. 

i [MS.—" He spoke, and plunged into the tide."} 



[ 77 j 



LADY OF THE LAKE. 
CANTO THIRD. 



I. 

Time rolls his ceaseless course. The race of yore, 

Who danced our infancy upon their knee, 
And told our marvelling boyhood legends store, 

Of their strange ventures happ'd by land or sea, 
How are they blotted from the things that be ! 

How few, all weak and withered of their force, 
Wait on the verge of dark eternity, 

Like stranded wrecks, the tide returning hoarse, 
To sweep them from our sight ! Time rolls his ceaseless 
course. 

Yet live there still who can remember well, 
How when a mountain chief his bugle blew, 



?8 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto III, 

Both field and forest, dingle, cliff, and dell, 

And solitary heath, the signal knew \ 
And fast the faithful clan around him drew, 

What time the warning note was keenly wound, 
What time aloft their kindred banner flew, 

While clamorous war-pipes yell'd the gathering 
sound, 
And while the Fiery Cross glanced, like a meteor, 
round. 1 

IT. 

The summer dawn's reflected hue 
To purple changed Loch Katrine blue ; 
Mildly and soft the western breeze 
Just kiss'd the lake, just stirr'd the trees, 
And the pleased lake, like maiden coy, 
Trembled but dimpled not for joy ', 
The mountain-shadows on her breast 
Were neither broken nor at rest ; 
In bright uncertainty they lie, 
Like future joys to Fancy's eye. 
The water-lily to the light 
Her chalice rear'd of silver bright ; 
The doe awoke, and to the lawn, 2 
Begemm'd with dewdrops, led her fawn ; 
The grey mist left the mountain side, 
The torrent show'd its glistening pride ; 



1 See Appendix, Note 2 A. 

2 [MS.-—" The doe awoke, and to the lawn, 

Begemm'd with dewdrops, led her fawn ; 
Invisible in fleecy cloud, 
The lark sent down her matins loud ; 
The light mist left," &c] 



CantO III, THE GATHERING. 70 

Invisible in flecked sky, 

The lark sent down her revelry ; 

The blackbird and the speckled thrush 

Good-morrow gave from brake and bush ? 

In answer coo'd the cushat dove 

Her notes of peace, and rest, and love. 

III. 

No thought of peace, no thought of rest, 
Assuaged the storm in Roderick's breast. 
With sheathed broadsword in his hand, 
Abrupt he paced the islet strand, 
And eyed the rising sun, and laid 
His hand on his impatient blade. 
Beneath a rock, his vassals' care 2 
Was prompt the ritual to prepare, 
With deep and deathful meaning fraught ; 
For such Antiquity had taught 
Was preface meet, ere yet abroad 
The Cross of Fire should take its road. 
The shrinking band stood oft aghast 
At the impatient glance he cast ; — 
Such glance the mountain eagle threw, 
As, from the cliffs of Benvenue, 
She spread her dark sails on the wind, 
And, high in middle heav'n reclined, 
With her broad shadow on the lake, 
Silenced the warblers of the brake. 



-" The green hills 



Are clothed with early blossoms ; through the grass 
The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the hills 
Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass." — ChUde Harold. 
2 [MS. — " Hard by, his vassals' early care 
The mystic ritual prepare."] 



80 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto III. 

IV. 

A heap of wither'd boughs was piled, 

Of juniper and rowan wild, 

Mingled with shivers from the oak, 

Rent by the lightning's recent stroke. 

Brian, the Hermit, by it stood, 

Barefooted, in his frock and hood. 

His grisled beard and matted hair 

Obscured a visage of despair ; 

His naked arms and legs, seam'd o'er, 

The scars of frantic penance bore. 

That monk, of savage form and face, 1 

The impending danger of his race 

Had drawn from deepest solitude, 

Far m Benharrow's bosom rude. 

Not his the mien of Christian priest, 

But Druid's, from the grave released, 

Whose harden'd heart and eye might brook 

On human sacrifice to look ; 

And much, 'twas said, of heathen lore 

Mix'd in the charms he mutter 'd o'er. 

The hallow 'd creed gave only worse 2 

And deadlier emphasis of curse ; 

No peasant sought that Hermit's prayer, 

His cave the pilgrim shunn'd with care, 

The eager huntsman knew his bound, 

And in mid chase call'd off his hound ; 

Or if, in lonely glen or strath, 

The desert- dweller met his path, 

He pray'd, and sign'd the cross between, 

While terror took devotion's mien. 3 

i See Appendix, Note 2 B. 

2 [MS.—" While the bless'd creed gave only worse."] 

3 [MS. 1 — " He pray'd, with many a cross between, 

And terror took devotion's mien. "] 



Canto III. THE GATHERING. fcl 

V. 

Of Brian's birth strange tales were told. 1 
His mother watch'd a midnight fold, 
Built deep within a dreary glen, 
Where scattered lay the bones of men, 
In some forgotten battle slain, 
And bleach 'd by drifting wind and rain. 
It might have tamed a warrior's heart, 2 
To view such mockery of his art ! 
The knot-grass fetter' d there the hand, 
Which once could burst an iron band \ 
Beneath the broad and ample bone, 
That buckler'd heart to fear unknown, 
A feeble and a timorous guest, 
The field-fare framed her lowly nest ; 
There the slow blind-worm left his slime 
On the fleet limbs that mock'd at time : 
And there, too, lay the leader's skull, 3 
Still wreathed with chaplet, flush'd and full, 



i See Appendix, Note 2 C. 

2 [" There is something of pride in the perilous hour, 

Whate'er he the shape in which death may lower : 

For Fame is there to say who "bleeds, 

And Honour's eye on daring deeds ! 

But when all is past, it is humbling to tread 

O'er the weltering field of the tombless dead, 

And see worms of the earth, and fowls of the air, 

Beasts of the forest, all gathering there ; 

All regarding man as their prey, 

All rejoicing in his decay." — Byron — Siege of Corinth.] 
s [" Remove yon skull from out the scatter'd heaps. 

Is that a temple where a god may dwell ? 

Why, even the worm at last disdains her shatter'd cell 

Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall, 

Its chambers desolate, and portals foul ; 

Yet this was once Ambition's airy hall, 

The dome of thought the palace of the soul : 



82 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto III. 

For heath-bell, with her purple bloom, 
Supplied the bonnet and the plume. 
All nighty in this sad glen, the maid 
Sate, shrouded in her mantle's shade : 
— She said, no shepherd sought her side, 
No hunter's hand her snood untied, 
Yet ne'er again to braid her hair 
The virgin snood did Alice wear \ l 
Gone was her maiden glee and sport, 
Her maiden girdle all too short, 
Nor sought she, from that fatal night, 
Or holy church or blessed rite, 
But lock'd her secret in her breast, 
And died in travail, unconfess'd. 

VI. 

Alone, among his young compeers, 
Was Brian from his infant years ; 
A moody and heart-broken boy, 
Estranged from sympathy and joy, 
Bearing each taunt which careless tongue 
On his mysterious lineage flung. 
Whole nights he spent by moonlight pale, 
To wood and stream his hap to wail, 
Till, frantic, he as truth received 2 
What of his birth the crowd believed, 

Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole, 
The gay recess of wisdom, and of wit, 
And passion's host, that never brook' d control : 
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ, 
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit ?" 

Ckilde Harold.] 

1 See Appendix, Note 2 D. 

2 [MS. — " Till, driven to frenzy, he believed 

The legend of his birth received."] 



Canto III, THE GATHERING. 83 

And sought, in mist and meteor fire, 
To meet and know his Phantom Sire ! 
In vain, to soothe his wayward fate, 
The cloister oped her pitying gate ; 
In vain, the learning of the age 
Unclasp 'd the sable-letter'd page ; 
Even in its treasures he could find 
Food for the fever of his mind. 
Eager he read whatever tells 
Of magic, cabala, and spells, 
And every dark pursuit allied 
To curious and presumptuous pride ; 
Till with fired brain and nerves o'erstrung, 
And heart with mystic horrors wrung, 
Desperate he sought Benharrow's den, 
And hid him from the haunts of men. 

VII. 

The desert gave him visions wild, 
Such as might suit the Spectre's child. 1 
Where with black cliffs the torrents toil, 
He watch'd the wheeling eddies boil. 
Till, from their foam, his dazzled eyes 
Beheld the river Demon rise ; 
The mountain mist took form and limb, 
Of noontide hag, or goblin grim ; 
The midnight wind came wild and dread, 
Swell'd with the voices of the dead \ 
Far on the future battle-heath 
His eye beheld the ranks of death : 
Thus the lone Seer, from mankind hurTd, 
Shaped forth a disembodied world, 

1 See Appendix, Note 2 E. 



84 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto III. 

One lingering sympathy of mind 

Still bound him to the mortal kind ; 

The only parent he could claim 

Of ancient Alpine's lineage came. 

Late had he heard, in prophet's dream, 

The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream -, 1 

Sounds, too, had come in midnight blast, 

Of charging steeds, careering fast 

Along Benharrow's shingly side, 

Where mortal horsemen ne'er might ride ; 2 

The thunderbolt had split the pine, — 

All augur'd ill to Alpine's line. 

He girt his loins, and came to show 

The signals of impending woe, 

And now stood prompt to bless or ban, 

As bade the chieftain of his clan. 

VIII. 

Twas all prepared ; — and from the rock, 
A goat, the patriarch of the flock, 
Before the kindling pile was laid, 
And pierced by Roderick's ready blade. 
Patient the sickening victim eyed 
The life-blood ebb in crimson tide, 
Down his clogg'd beard and shaggy limb, 
Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim. 
The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer, 
A slender crosslet form'd with care, 



i [MS.—" The fatal Ben-Shie's dismal scream ; 
And seen her wrinkled form, the sign 
Of woe and death to Alpine's line."] 
See Appendix, Note 2 F. 

2 See Appendix, Note 2 G. 



CantO III. THE GATHERING. 85 

A cubit's length in measure due ; 
The shaft and limbs were rods of yew, 
Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach wave 1 
Their shadows o'er Clan- Alpine's grave, 
And, answering Lomond's breezes deep, 
Soothe many a chieftain's endless sleep. 
The Cross, thus form'd, he held on high, 
With wasted hand, and haggard eye, 
And strange and mingled feelings woke, 
While his anathema he spoke. 

IX. 

" Woe to the clansman, who shall view 
This symbol of sepulchral yew, 
Forgetful that its branches grew 
Where weep the heavens their holiest dew 

On Alpine's dwelling low ! 
Deserter of his Chieftain's trust, 
He ne'er shall mingle with their dust, 
But, from his sires and kindred thrust, 
Each clansman's execration just 2 

Shall doom him wrath and woe." 
He paused ; — the word the vassals took, 
With forward step and fiery look, 
On high their naked brands they shook 
Their clattering targets wildly strook f 

And first in murmur low, 
Then, like the billow in his course, 
That far to seaward finds his source, 



1 See Appendix, Note 2 H. 

2 [MS. — " Our warriors, on his worthless bust. 

Shall speak disgrace and woe."] 

3 [MS.— : ' Their clattering targets hardly strook ; 

And first they mutter' d low."] 



86 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto HI. 

And flings to shore his muster'd force, 
Burst, with loud roar, their answer hoarse, 

" Woe to the traitor, woe !" 
Ben-an's grey scalp the accents knew, 
The joyous wolf from covert drew, 
The exulting eagle scream'd afar, — 
They knew the voice of Alpine's war. 

X. 

The shout was hush'd on lake and fell, 
The monk resumed his mutter'd spell : 
Dismal and low its accents came, 
The while he scathed the Cross with flame ; 
And the few words that reach'd the air, 
Although the holiest name was there, 1 
Had more of blasphemy than prayer. 
But when he shook above the crowd 
Its kindled points, he spoke aloud : — 
M Woe to the wretch, who fails to rear 
At this dread sign the ready spear ! 
For, as the flames this symbol sear, 
His home, the refuge of his fear, 

A kindred fate shall know : 
Far o'er its roof the volumed flame 
Clan- Alpine's vengeance shall proclaim, 
While maids and matrons on his name 
Shall call down wretchedness and shame, 

And infamy and woe." 
Then rose the cry of females, shrill 
As goss-hawk's whistle on the hill, 
Denouncing misery and ill, 
Mingled with childhood's babbling trill 

Of curses stammer'd slow ; 
i [MS.—" Although the holy name was there."J 



Canto III. THE GATHERING. 87 

Answering, with imprecation dread, 
¥ Sunk be his home in embers red ! 
And cursed be meanest shed 
That e'er shall hide the houseless head 

"We doom to want and woe !" 
A sharp and shrieking echo gave, 
Coir-Uriskin, thy goblin cave ! 
And the grey pass where birches wave, 

On Beala-nam-bo. 

XI. 

Then deeper paused the priest anew, 
And hard his labouring breath he drew, 
While with set teeth and clenched hand, 
And eyes that glow'd like fiery brand, 
He meditated curse more dread, 
And deadlier, on the clansman's head, 
Who, summon'd to his Chieftain's aid, 
The signal saw and disobey 'd. 
The crosslet's points of sparkling wood, 
He quench'd among the bubbling blood, 
And, as again the sign he rear'd, 
Hollow and hoarse his voice was heard : 
" When flits this Cross from man to man, 
Vich- Alpine's summons to his clan, 
Burst be the ear that fails to heed ! 
Palsied the foot that shuns to speed ! 
May ravens tear the careless eyes, 
Wolves make the coward heart their pri2e ! 
As sinks that blood-stream in the earth, 
So may his heart's-blood drench his hearth ! 
As dies in hissing gore the spark, 
Quench thou his light. Destruction dark ! 



83 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Ganto III. 

And be the grace to him denied* 
Bought by this sign to all beside !" 
He ceased ; no echo gave agen 
The murmur of the deep Amen. 1 

XII. 

Then Roderick, with impatient look, 

From Brian's hand the symbol took : 

" Speed, Malise, speed!" he said, and gave 

The crosslet to his henchman brave. 

" The muster-place be Lanrick mead — 2 

Instant the time — speed, Malise, speed !" 

Like heath-bird, when the hawks pursue, 

A barge across Loch Katrine flew ; 

High stood the henchman on the prow, 

So rapidly the barge-men row, 

The bubbles, where they launch'd the boat, 

Were all unbroken and afloat, 

Dancing in foam and ripple still, 

When it had near'd the mainland hill ; 

And from the silver beach's side 

Still was the prow three fathom wide, 

When lightly bounded to the land 

The messenger of blood and brand. 3 

XIII. 

Speed, Malise, speed ! the dun deer's hide 
On fleeter foot was never tied. 
Speed, Malise, speed ! such cause of haste 
Thine active sinews never braced. 

i [MS.—" The slowly mutter'd deep Amen."] 

2 [MS.—-" Murlagan is the spot decreed."] 

3 See Appendix, Note 2 I. 



Canto TIL the gathering. 39 

Bend 'gainst the steepy hill thy breast, 
Burst down like torrent from its crest ; 
With short and springing footstep pass 
The trembling bog and false morass ; 
Across the brook like roebuck bound, 
And thread the brake like questing hound ; 
The crag is high, the scaur is deep, 
Yet shrink not from the desperate leap : 
Parch'd are thy burning lips and brow, 
Yet by the fountain pause not now ; 
Herald of battle, fate, and fear, 1 
Stretch onward in thy fleet career ! 
The wounded hind thou track'st not now, 
Pursuest not maid through greenwood bough, 
Nor pliest thou now thy flying^ace, 
With rivals in the mountain race ; 
But danger, death, and warrior deed, 
Are in thy course — speed, Malise, speed ! 

XIV. 

Fast as the fatal symbol flies, 
In arms the huts and hamlets rise ; 
From winding glen, from upland brown, 
They pour'd each hardy tenant down. 
Nor sl^ck'd the messenger his pace ; 
He show'd the sign, he named the place, 
And, pressing forward like the wind. 
Left clamour and surprise behind. 



* [MS.—" Dread messenger of fate and fear,^| 
Herald of danger, fate, and fear, 
Stretch onward in thy fleet career ! 
Thou track'st not now the stricken doe, 
Nor maiden coy through greenwood bough."] 



L fear, ^ 
reer! ) 



00 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto TIL 

The fisherman forsook the strand, 
The swarthy smith took dirk and brand ; 
With changed cheer, the mower blithe 
Left in the half-cut swathe the scythe ; 
The herds without a keeper stray'd, 
The plough was in mid-furrow staid, 
The falc'ner toss'd his hawk away, 
The hunter left the stag at bay ; 
Prompt at the signal of alarms, 
Each son of Alpine rush'd to arms ; 
So swept the tumult and affray 
Along the margin of Achray. 
Alas, thou lovely lake ! that e'er 
Thy banks should echo sounds of fear ! 
The rocks, the bosky thickets, sleep 
So stilly on thy bosom deep, 
The lark's blithe carol, from the cloud, 
Seems for the scene too gaily loud. 1 



XV. 

Speed, Malise, speed ! the lake is past, 
Duncraggan's huts appear at last, 
And peep, like moss-grown rocks, half-seen, 
Half hidden in the copse so green ; 
There mayst thou rest, thy labour done, 

Their Lord shall speed the signal on 

As stoops the hawk upon his prey, 
The henchman shot him down the way. 
— What woeful accents load the gale ? 
The funeral yell, the female wail ! 2 
A gallant hunter's sport is o'er, 
A valiant warrior fights no more. 

J [MS. — " Seems all too lively and too loud.*''] 

2 [MS.— i" 'Tis woman's scream, 'tis childhood's wail"] 






CantO III. THE GATHERING. 9 1 

Who, in the battle or the chase, 

At Roderick's side shall fill his place !— 

Within the hall, where torches' ray 

Supplies the excluded beams of day, 

Lies Duncan on his lowly bier, 

And o'er him streams his widow's tear. 

His stripling son stands mournful by, 

His youngest weeps, but knows not why ; 

The village maids and matrons round 

The dismal coronach 1 resound. 

XVI. 

€axamct). 

He is gone on the moimtain, 

He is lost to the forest, 
Like a summer-dried fountain, 

When our need was the sorest. 
The font, reappearing, 

From the rain-drops shall borrow, 
But to us comes no cheering, 

To Duncan no morrow ! 
The hand of the reaper 

Takes the ears that are hoary, 
But the voice of the weeper 

Wails manhood in glory. 
The autumn winds rushing 

Waft the leaves that are searest, 
But our flower was in flushing, 

When blighting was nearest. 

Fleet foot on the correi, 2 
Sage counsel in cumber, 

• See Appendix, Note 2 K. 

2 Or corri. The hollow side of the hill, where game usually lies. 



92 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto III. 

Red hand in the foray, 

How sound is thy slumber ! 
Like the dew on the mountain, 

Like the foam on the river, 
Like the bubble on the fountain, 

Thou art gone, and for ever ! 

XVII. 

See Stumah, 1 who, the bier beside, 
His master's corpse with wonder eyed, 
Poor Stumah ! whom his least halloo 
Could send like lightning o'er the dew, 
Bristles his crest, and points his ears, 
As if some stranger step he hears. 
Tis not a mourner's muffled tread, 
Who comes to sorrow o'er the dead, 
But headlong haste, or deadly fear, 
Urge the precipitate career. 
All stand aghast : — unheeding all. 
The henchman bursts into the hall ; 
Before the dead man's bier he stood *, 
Held forth the Cross besmear'd with blood ; 
" The muster-place is Lanrick mead ; 
Speed forth the signal ! clansmen, speed !" 

XVIII. 

Angus, the heir of Duncan's line, 2 
Sprung forth and seized the fatal sign. 

1 Faithful. The name of a dog. 

2 (_MS. — " Angus, thejirst of Duncan's line, 

Sprung forth and seized the fatal sign, 
And then upon his kinsman's bier 
Fell Malise's suspended tear. 
In haste the stripling to his side 
His father's targe and falchion tied."] 



Canto III. THE GATHERING. 93 

In haste the stripling to his side 

His father's dirk and broadsword tied ; 

But when he saw his mother's eye 

Watch him in speechless agony, 

Back to her open'd arms he flew, 

Press'd on her lips a fond adieu — 

" Alas !" she sobb''d, — " and yet be gone, 

And speed thee forth, like Duncan's son !" 

One look he cast upon the bier, 

Dash'd from his eye the gathering tear, 

Breathed deep to clear his labouring breast, 

And toss'd aloft his bonnet crest, 

Then, like the high-bred colt, when, freed, 

First he essays his fire and speed, 

He vanish'd, and o'er moor and moss 

Sped forward with the Fiery Cross. 

Suspended was the widow's tear, 

While yet his footsteps she could hear ; 

And when she mark'd the henchman's eye, 

Wet with unwonted sympathy, 

" Kinsman," she said, " his race is run, 

That should have sped thine errand on ; 

The oak has fall'n, — the sapling bough 

Is all Duncraggan's shelter now. 

Yet trust I well, his duty done, 

The orphan's God will guard my son, — 

And you, in many a danger true, 

At Duncan's hest your blades that drew, 

To arms, and guard that orphan's head \ 

Let babes and women wail the dead." 

Then weapon-clang, and martial call, 

Resounded through the funeral hall, 

While from the walls the attendant band 

Snatch'd sword and targe, with hurried hand ; 



.94 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto III. 

And short and flitting energy- 
Glanced from the mourner's sunken eye, 
As if the sounds to warrior dear 
Might rouse her Duncan from his bier. 
But faded soon that borrow'd force ; 
Grief claim'd his right, and tears their course. 

XIX. 

Benledi saw the Cross of Fire, 
It glanced like lightning up Strath-Tre. 1 
O'er dale and hill the summons flew, 
Nor rest nor pause young Angus knew ; 
The tear that gather'd in his eye 
He left the mountain-breeze to dry ; 
Until, where Teith's young waters roll, 
Betwixt him and a wooded knoll, 2 
That graced the sable strath with green, 
The chapel of Saint Bride was seen. 
Swoln was the stream, remote the bridge, 
But Angus paused not on the edge ; 
Though the dark waves danced dizzily, 
Though reel'd his sympathetic eye, 
He dash'd amid the torrent's roar : 
His right hand high the crosslet bore, 
His left the pole-axe grasp'd, to guide 
And stay his footing in the tide. 
He stumbled twice — the foam splash'd high, 
With hoarser swell the stream raced by \ 
And had he fall'n, — for ever there, 
Farewell Duncraggan's orphan heir ! 



1 See Appendix, Note 2 L, 

2 [MS — " And where a steep and -wooded knoll 

Graced the dark strath with emerald green.""} 



Canto III. THE GATHERING. 

But still, as if in parting life, 
Firmer he grasp'd the Cross of strife, 
Until the opposing bank he gain'd, 
And up the chapel pathway strain'd. 

XX. 

A blithesome rout, that morning tide, 
Had sought the chapel of Saint Bride. 
Her troth Tombea's Mary gave 
To Norman, heir of Armandave, 
And, issuing from the Gothic arch, 
The bridal now resumed their march. 
In rude, but glad procession, came 
Bonneted sire and coif-clad dame ; 
And plaided youth, with jest and jeer, 
Which snooded maiden would not hear : 
And children, that, unwitting why, 
Lent the gay shout their shrilly cry ; 
And minstrels, that in measures vied 
Before the young and bonny bride, 
Whose downcast eye and cheek disclose 
The tear and blush of morning rose. 
With virgin step, and bashful hand, 
She held the 'kerchief's snowy band ; 
The gallant bridegroom, by her side, 
Beheld his prize with victor's pride, 
And the glad mother in her ear 
Was closely whispering word of cheer. 

XXI. 

Who meets them at the churchyard gate ? 
The messenger of fear and fate ! 
Haste in his hurried accent lies, 
And grief is swimming in his eyes. 



96 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Catlto III, 

All dripping from the recent flood, 

Panting and travel-soiPd he stood, 

The fatal sign of fire and sword 

Held forth, and spoke the appointed word : 

" The muster-place is Lanrick mead ; 

Speed forth the signal ! Norman, speed !" 

And must he change so soon the hand, 1 

Just link'd to his by holy band, 

For the fell Cross of blood and brand ? 

And must the day, so blithe that rose, 

And promised rapture in the close, 

Before its setting hour, divide 

The bridegroom from the plighted bride ? 

fatal doom ! — it must ! it must ! 
Clan- Alpine's cause, her Chieftain's trust, 
Her summons dread, brook no delay ; 
Stretch to the race — away! away ! 

XXII. 

Yet slow he laid his plaid aside, 
And, lingering, eyed his lovely bride, 
Until he saw the starting tear 
Speak woe he might not stop to cheer ; 
Then, trusting not a second look, 
In haste he sped him up the brook, 
Nor backward glanced, till on the heath 
Where Lubnaig's lake supplies the Teith, 
—What in the racer's bosom stirr'd ? 
The sickening pang of hope deferr'd, 
And memory, with a torturing train 2 
Of all his morning visions vain. 

1 [MS. — "And must he then exchange the hand." 

2 [MS. — " And memory brought the torturing train 

Of all his morning visions vain ; 
But mingled with impatience came 
The manlv love of martial fame." 



Canto III. THE GATHERING. 97 

Mingled with love's impatience, came 
The manly thirst for martial fame ; 
The stormy joy of mountaineers, 
Ere yet they rush upon the spears ; 
And zeal for Clan and Chieftain burning, 
And hope, from well-fought field returning, 
With war's red honours on his crest, 
To clasp his Mary to his breast. 
Stung by such thoughts, o'er bank and brae, 
Like fire from flint he glanced away, 
While high resolve, and feeling strong, 
Burst into voluntary song. 

XXIIL 

The heath this night must be my bed, 
The bracken 1 curtain for my head, 
My lullaby the warder's tread, 

Far, far, from love and thee, Mar} 7 ; 
To-morrow eve, more stilly laid, 
My couch may be my bloody plaid, 
My vesper song, thy wail, sweet maid J 

It will not waken me, Mary ! 
I may not, dare not, fancy now, 2 
The grief that clouds thy lovely brow, 
I dare not think upon thy vow, 

And all it promised me, Mary. 
No fond regret must Norman know ; 
When bursts Clan- Alpine on the foe, 
His heart must be like bended bow, 

His foot like arrow free, Mary. 



i Bracken — Fern. 

2 [MS. — " I may not, dare not, image now."] 
G 



98 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto III. 

A time will come with feeling fraught, 1 
For, if I fall in battle fought, 
Thy hapless lover's dying thought 

Shall be a thought on thee, Mary. 
And if return 'd from conquer 'd foes, 
How blithely will the evening close, 
How sweet the linnet sing repose, 

To my young bride and me, Mary ! 

XXIV. 

Not faster o'er thy heathery braes, 
Balquidder, speeds the midnight blaze, 2 
Hushing, in conflagration strong, 
Thy deep ravines and dells along, 
Wrapping thy cliffs in purple glow, 
And reddening the dark lakes below ; 
Nor faster speeds it, nor so far, 
As o'er thy heaths the voice of war. 
The signal roused to martial coil, 
The sullen margin of Loch Voil, 
Waked still Loch Doine, and to the source 
Alarm'd, Balvaig, thy swampy course ; 
Thence southward turn'd its rapid road 
Adown Strath-Gartney's valley broad, 

1 [MS. — " A time will come for love and faith, 

For should thy bridegroom yield his breath, 
'Twill cheer him in the hour of death, 
The boasted right to thee, Mary."] 
2 It may be necessary to inform the southern reader, that the 
heath on the Scottish moorlands is often set fire to, that the sheep 
may have the advantage of the young herbage produced, in room 
of the tough old heather plants. This custom, (execrated by sports- 
men) produces occasionally the most beautiful nocturnal appear- 
ances, similar almost to the discharge of a volcano. This simile 
is not new to poetry. The charge of a warrior, in the fine ballad of 
Hardyknute, is said to be " like fire to heather set." 



Canto III. THE GATHERING. 99 

Till rose in arms each man might claim 

A portion in Clan-Alpine's name, 

From the grey sire, whose trembling hand 

Could hardly buckle on his brand, 

To the raw boy, whose shaft and bow 

Were yet scarce terror to the crow. 

Each valley, each sequester'd glen, 

Muster'd its little horde of men, 

That met as torrents from the height 

In Highland dales their streams unite, 

Still gathering, as they pour along, 

A voice more loud, a tide more strong, 

Till at the rendezvous they stood 

By hundreds, prompt for blows and blood ; 

Each trained to arms since life began, 

Owning no tie but to his clan, 

No oath, but by his chieftain's hand, 

No law, but Roderick Dhu's command. 1 

XXV. 

That summer morn had Roderick Dhu 
Survey 'd the skirts of Ben venue, 
And sent his scouts o'er hill and heath, 
To view the frontiers of Menteith. 
All backward came with news of truce ; 
Still lay each martial Graeme and Bruce, 
In Rednock courts no horsemen wait, 
No banner waved on Cardross gate, 
On Duchray's towers no beacon shone, 
Nor scared the herons from Loch Con ? 

All seem'd at peace Now, wot ye why 

The Chieftain, with such anxious eye, 

1 See Appendix, Note 2 M. 



100 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto III. 

Ere to the muster he repair, 

This western frontier scann'd with care ?— 

In Benvenue's most darksome cleft, 

A fair, though cruel, pledge was left ; 

For Douglas, to his promise true, 

That morning from the isle withdrew, 

And in a deep sequester'd dell 

Had sought a low and lonely cell. 

By many a hard, in Celtic tongue, 

Has Coir-nan-Uriskin been sung -, 1 

A softer name the Saxons gave, 

And calPd the grot the Goblin-cave. 

XXVI. 
It was a wild and strange retreat, 
As e'er was trod by outlaw's feet. 
The dell, upon the mountain's crest, 
Yawn'd like a gash on warrior's breast ; 
Its trench had staid full many a rock, 
Hurl'd by primeval earthquake shock 
From Benvenue's grey summit wild, 
And here, in random ruin piled, 
They frown'd incumbent o'er the spot, 
And form'd the rugged silvan grot. 2 
The oak and birch, with mingled shade, 
At noontide there a twilight made, 
Unless when short and sudden shone 
Some straggling beam on cliff or stone, 
With such a glimpse as prophet's eye 
Gains on thy depth, Futurity. 
No murmur wak'd the solemn still, 
Save tinkling of a fountain rill ; 

1 See Appendix, Note 2 N. 

2 See Appendix, Note 2 O. 



CantO HI. THE GATHERING. 101 

But when the wind chafed with the lake, 
A sullen sound would upward break, 
With dashing hollow voice, that spoke 
The incessant war of wave and rock* 
Suspended cliffs, with hideous sway, 
Seem'd nodding o'er the cavern grey. 
From such a den the wolf had sprung, 
In such the wild-cat leaves her young ; 
Yet Douglas and his daughter fair 
Sought for a space their safety there. 
Grey Superstition's whisper dread 
Debarr'd the spot to vulgar tread ; 
For there, she said, did fays resort, 
And satyrs 1 hold their silvan court, 
By moonlight tread their mystic maze, 
And blast the rash beholder's gaze. 

XXVII. 

Now eve, with western shadows long, 
Floated on Katrine bright and strong, 
When Roderick, with a chosen few, 
Repass'd the heights of Benvenue. 
Above the Goblin-cave they go, 
Through the wild pass of Beal-nam-bo ; 2 
The prompt retainers speed before, 
To launch the shallop from the shore, 
For cross Loch Katrine lies his way 
To view the passes of Achray, 
And place his clansmen in array. 

i The Urisk, or Highland satyr. See a previous Note. 
2 Bealach-nam-bo, or the pass of cattle, is a most magnificent 
ade, overhung with aged birch-trees, a little higher up the moun- 
ain than the Coir-nan-Uriskin, treated of in a former note. The 
whole composes the most sublime piece of scenery that imagination 
can conceive. 



102 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto III, 

Yet lags the chief in musing mind, 

Unwonted sight, his men behind. 

A single page, to bear his sword, 

Alone attended on his lord \ l 

The rest their way through thickets break, 

And soon awake him by the lake. 

It was a fair and gallant sight, 

To view them from the neighbouring height, 

By the low-levell'd sunbeam's light ! 

For strength and stature, from the clan 

Each warrior was a chosen man, 

As even afar might well be seen, 

By their proud step and martial mien. 

Their feathers dance, their tartans float, 

Their targets gleam, as by the boat 

A wild and warlike group they stand, 

That well became such mountain-strand. 

XXVIII. 

Their Chief, with step reluctant, still 
Was lingering on the craggy hill, 
Hard by where turn'd apart the road 
To Douglas's obscure abode. 
It was but with that dawning morn, 
That Roderick Dhu had proudly sworn, 
To drown his love in war's wild roar, 2 
Nor think of Ellen Douglas more ; 
But he who stems a stream with sand, 
And fetters flame with flaxen band, 
Has yet a harder task to prove — 
By firm resolve to conquer love ! 

1 See Appendix, Note 2 P. 
2 [MS. — " To drown his grief in war's wild roar, 
Nor think of love and Ellen more."] 






Canto III. THE GATHERING. 103 

Eve finds the Chief, like restless ghost, 
Still hovering near his treasure lost ; 
For though his haughty heart deny 
A parting meeting to his eye, 
Still fondly strains his anxious ear, 
The accents of her voice to hear, 
And inly did he curse the breeze 
That waked to sound the rustling trees. 
But hark ! what mingles in the strain ? 
It is the harp of Allan-bane, 
That wakes its measure slow and high, 
Attuned to sacred minstrelsy. 
What melting voice attends the strings ? 
'Tis Ellen, or an angel, sings. 

XXIX. 
l&gmn to fyt Wivgin. 

Ave Maria ! maiden mild ! 

Listen to a maiden's prayer ! 
Thou canst hear though from the wild, 

Thou canst save amid despair. 
Safe may we sleep beneath thy care, 

Though banish'd, outcast, and reviled — 
Maiden ! hear a maiden's prayer ; 

Mother, hear a suppliant child ! 

Ave Maria ! 

Ave Maria ! undefiled ! 

The flinty couch we now must share 1 
Shall seem with down of eider piled, 

If thy protection hover there. 

i [MS.— " The flinty couch my sire must share."] 



104 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto II L 

The murky cavern's heavy air 1 

Shall breathe of balm if thou hast smiled ; 
Then, Maiden ! hear a maiden's prayer, 

Mother, list a suppliant child ! 

Ave Maria ! 

Ave Maria I Stainless styled ! 

Foul demons of the earth and air, 
From this their wonted haunt exiled, 

Shall flee before thy presence fair. 
We bow us to our lot of care, 

Beneath thy guidance reconciled ; 
Hear for a maid a maiden's prayer, 

And for a father hear a child ! 

Ave Maria I 

XXX. 

Died on the harp the closing hymn — 
Unmoved in attitude and limb, 
As listening still, Clan- Alpine's lord 
Stood leaning on his heavy sword, 
Until the page, with humble sign, 
Twice pointed to the sun's decline. 
Then while his plaid he round him cast, 
M It is the last time — 'tis the last," 
He mutter'd thrice, — " the last time e'er 
That angel- voice shall Roderick hear !" 
It was a goading thought — his stride 
Hied hastier down the mountain-side ; 
Sullen he flung him in the boat, 
And instant 'cross the lake it shot. 

* [MS.—" The murky grotto's noxious air."] 



CantO III, THE GATHERING. 105 

They landed in that silvery bay, 
And eastward held their hasty way, 
Till, with the latest beams of light, 
The band arrived on Lanrick height, 
Where muster'd, in the vale below, 1 
Clan-Alpine's men in martial show. 

XXXI. 

A various scene the clansmen made, 

Some sate, some stood, some slowly stray'd ; 

But most, with mantles folded round, 

Were couch'd to res* upon the ground, 

Scarce to be known by curious eye, 

From the deep heather where they lie, 

So well was match 'd the tartan screen 

With heath-bell dark and brackens green ; 

Unless where, here and there, a blade, 

Or lance's point, a glimmer made, 

Like glow-worm twinkling through the shade. 

But when, advancing through the gloom, 

They saw the Chieftain's eagle plume, 

Their shout of welcome, shrill and wide, 

Shook the steep mountain's steady side. 

Thrice it arose, and lake and fell 

Three times return'd the martial yell ; 

It died upon Bochastle's plain, 

And Silence claim'd her evening reign. 

1 [MS. — " Where broad extending far below, 

Muster'd Clan-Alpine's martial show."] 



107 



LADY OF THE LAKE. 



CANTO FOURTH. 



0;r iSrtfnIjmi. 
I. 

" The rose is fairest when 'tis budding new. 

And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears : 
The rose is sweetest wash'd with morning dew. 

And love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears. 
O wilding rose, whom fancy thus endears. 

I bid your blossoms in my bonnet wave. 
Emblem of hope and love through future years ! " 
Thus spoke young Norman, heir of Armandave, 
What time the sun arose on Yennachar's broad wave. 

II. 
Such fond conceit, half said, half sung, 
Love prompted to the bridegroom's tongue. 

1 [MS — " And rapture dearest when obscured by fay 



] 08 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto IV, 

All while he stripp'd the wild-rose spray, 

His axe and bow beside him lay, 

For on a pass 'twixt lake and wood, 

A wakeful sentinel he stood. 

Hark ! — on the rock a footstep rung, 

And instant to his arms he sprung. 

" Stand, or thou diest ! — What, Malise ? — soon 

Art thou return'd from Braes of Doune, 

By thy keen step and glance I know, 

Thou bring'st us tidings of the foe.'" — 

(For while the Fiery Cross hied on, 

On distant scout had Malise gone.) 

" Where sleeps the Chief?" the henchman said. 

" Apart, in yonder misty glade ; 

To his lone couch I'll be your guide," — 

Then call'd a slumberer by his side, 

And stirr'd him with his slacken'd bow — 

" Up, up, Glentarkin ! rouse thee, ho ! 

We seek the Chieftain •, on the track, 

Keep eagle watch till I come back*" 

III. 

Together up the pass they sped : 

" What of the foeman ? " Norman said. — 

M Varying reports from near and far ; 

This certain, — that a band of war 

Has for two days been ready boune, 

At prompt command, to march from Doune ; 

King James, the while, with princely powers, 

Holds revelry in Stirling towers. 

Soon will this dark and gathering cloud 

Speak on our glens in thunder loud. 

Inured to bide such bitter bout, 

The warrior's plaid may bear it out ; 



Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 109 

But, Norman, how wilt thou provide 

A shelter for thy boimy bride ? " — 

" What ! know ye not that Roderick's care 

To the lone isle hath caused repair 

Each maid and matron of the clan, 

And every child and aged man 

Unfit for arms ; and given his charge, 

Nor skiff nor shallop, boat nor barge, 

Upon these lakes shall float at large, 

But all beside the islet moor, - 

That such dear pledge may rest secure ? " — 

IV. 

" *Tis well advised — the Chieftain's plan l 

Bespeaks the father of his clan. 

But wherefore sleeps Sir Roderick Dhu 

Apart from all his followers true ? " — 

" It is, because last evening-tide 

Brian an augury hath tried, 

Of that dread kind which must not be 

Unless in dread extremity, 

The Taghairm call'd ; by which, afar, 

Our sires foresaw the events of war. 2 

Duncraggan's milk-white bull they slew." — 

malise. 
" Ah ! well the gallant brute I knew ! 
The choicest of the prey we had, 
When swept our merry-men Gallangad. 3 



i [MS.—" 'Tis well advised— a prudent plan, 

Worthy the father of his clan."] 
s See Appendix, Note 2 Q. 
3 See Appendix, Note 2 R. 



110 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto IV. 

His hide was snow, his horns were dark, 

His red eye glow'd like fiery spark ; 

So fierce, so tameless, and so fleet, 

Sore did he cumber our retrea,t, 

And kept our stoutest kernes in awe, 

Even at the pass of Beal 'maha. 

But steep and flinty was the road, 

And sharp the hurrying pikeman's goad, 

And when we came to Dennan's Row, 

A child might scatheless stroke his brow."— 

V. 

NORMAN. 

" That bull was slain : his reeking hide 
They stretch'd the cataract beside, 
Whose waters their wild tumult toss 
Adown the black and craggy boss 
Of that huge cliff, whose ample verge 
Tradition calls the Hero's Targe. 1 
Couch'd on a shelve beneath its brink, 
Close where the thundering torrents sink, 
Hocking beneath their headlong sway, 
And drizzled by the ceaseless spray, 
Midst groan of rock, and roar of stream, 
The wizard waits prophetic dream. 
Nor distant rests the Chief ; — but hush ! 
See, gliding slow through mist and bush, 



1 There is a rock so named in the Forest of Glenfinlas, by which 
a tumultuary cataract takes its course. This wild place is said in 
former times to have afforded refuge to an outlaw, who was sup- 
plied with provisions by a woman, who lowered them down from 
the brink of the precipice above. His water he procured for him- 
self, by letting down a rlagon tied to a string, into the black pool 
beneath the fall. 



Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. Ill 

The hermit gains yon rock, and stands 
To gaze upon our slumbering bands. 
Seems he not, Malise, like a ghost, 
That hovers o'er a slaughter'd host ? 
Or raven on the blasted oak, 
That, watching while the deer is broke, 1 
His morsel claims with sullen croak ? " 

MALISE. 

— " Peace ! peace ! to other than to me, 

Thy words were evil augury ; 

But still I hold Sir Roderick's blade 

Clan- Alpine's omen and her aid, 

Not aught that, glean 'd from heaven or hell, 

Yon fiend-begotten monk can tell. 

The Chieftain joins him, see — and now, 

Together they descend the brow." 

VI. 

And, as they came, with Alpine's Lord 
The Hermit Monk held solemn word ; 
" Roderick ! it is a fearful strife, 
For man endow'd with mortal life, 
Whose shroud of sentient clay can still 
Feel feverish pang and fainting chill, 
Whose eye can stare in stony trance, 
Whose hair can rouse like warrior's lance,— 
Tis hard for such to view, unfurl'd, 
The curtain of the future world. 
Yet, witness every quaking limb, 
My sunken pulse, mine eyeballs dim, 
My soul with harrowing anguish torn, 
This for my Chieftain have I borne ! — 
1 See Appendix, Note 2 S, 



112 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto IV. 

The shapes that sought my fearful couch, 

An human tongue may ne'er avouch ; 

No mortal man, — save he, who, bred 

Between the living and the dead, 

Is gifted beyond nature's law, — 

Had e'er survived to say he saw. 

At length the fateful answer came, 

In characters of living flame ! 

Not spoke in word, nor blazed in scroll, 

But borne and branded on my soul ; — 

Which spills the forbmost foeman's life, l 

That party conquers in the strife." — 2 






VII. 

" Thanks, Brian, for thy zeal and care ! 
Good is thine augury, and fair. 
Clan- Alpine ne'er in battle stood, 
But first our broadswords tasted blood. 
A surer victim still I know, 
Self-offer'd to the auspicious blow : 
A spy has sought my land this morn,— 
No eve shall witness his return ! 
My followers guard each pass's mouth, 
To east, to westward, and to south ; 
Red Murdoch, bribed to be his guide, 3 
Has charge to lead his steps aside, 

1 [MS.—" Which foremost spills a foeman's life."] 

2 Though this be in the text described as a response of the Tag- 
hairm, or Oracle of the Hide, it was of itself an augury frequently- 
attended to. The fate of the battle was often anticipated in the 
imagination of the combatants, by observing which party first shed 
blood. It is said that the Highlanders under Montrose were so 
deeply imbued with this notion, that on the morning of the battle 
of Tippermoor, they murdered a defenceless herdsman, whom they 
found in the fields, merely to secure an advantage of so much con- 
sequence to their party. 

3 CMS. — "The clansman vainly dcem'd his guide."] 



Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 113 

Till, in deep path or dingle brown, 
He light on those shall bring him down. 1 
— But see, who comes his news to show ! 
Malise ! what tidings of the foe ?" — 

VIII. 

" At Doune, o'er many a spear and glaive 
Two Barons proud their banners wave. 
I saw the Moray's silver star, 
And mark'd the sable pale of Mar.'" — 

P" By Alpine's soul, high tidings those ! 
I love to hear of worthy foes. 
When move they on ?" — " To-morrow's noon 2 
Will see them here for battle boune." — 3 
" Then shall it see a meeting stern ! — 
But, for the place — say, couldst thou learn 
Nought of the friendly clans of Earn ? 
Strength en'd by them, we well might bide 
The battle on Benledi's side. 
Thou couldst not ? — well ! Clan- Alpine's men 
Shall man the Trosachs' shaggy glen ; 
Within Loch Katrine's gorge we'll fight, 
All in our maids' and matrons' sight, 
Each for his hearth and household fire, 
Father for child, and son for sire, — 
Lover for maid beloved ! — but why — 
Is it the breeze affects mine eye ? 



i [MS. — " He light on those shall stab him down."] 
2 [MS.— " 'When move they on?{ ' ™^ un }at noon 
'Tis said will see them march from Donne.' 
To-morrow then { makes | meeting stern.' " 
s For battle boune— ready for battle. 
H 



114 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto IV. 

Or dost thou come, ill-omen'd tear ! 
A messenger of doubt or fear ? 
No ! sooner may the Saxon lance 
Unfix Benledi from his stance, 
Than doubt or terror can pierce through 
The unyielding heart of Roderick Dhu ! 

Tis stubborn as his trusty targe * 

Each to his post ! — all know their charge." 
The pibroch sounds, the bands advance, 
The broadswords gleam, the banners dance, 
Obedient to the Chieftain's glance. 
— I turn me from the martial roar, 
And seek Coir-Uriskin once more. 

IX. 

Where is the Douglas ? — he is gone ; 
And Ellen sits on the grey stone 
Fast by the cave, and makes her moan ; 
While vainly Allan's words of cheer 
Are pour'd on her unheeding ear. — 
u He will return — Dear lady, trust ! — 
With joy return ;-^he will — he must. 
Well was it time to seek, afar, 
Some refuge from impending war, 
When e'en Clan- Alpine's rugged swarm 
Are cow'd by the approaching storm, 

1 saw their boats with many a light, 
Floating the live-long yesternight, 
Shifting like flashes darted forth 2 
By the red streamers of the north ; 

i £MS.— " Tis stubborn as his Highland targe."] 

2 [MS.—" Thick as the flashes darted forth 

By morrice-dancers of the north ; 

And saw at morn their ( l** ge l ri( J e ' 
l little fleet, 



Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 115 

I mark'd at morn how close they ride, 
Thick moor'd by the lone islet's side, 
Like wild-ducks couching in the fen, 
When stoops the hawk upon the glen. 
Since this rude race dare not abide 
The peril on the mainland side, 
Shall not thy noble father's care 
Some safe retreat for thee prepare ?" — 



ELLEN. 

64 No, Allan, no ! Pretext so kind 1 
My wakeful terrors could not blind. 
When in such tender tone, yet grave, 
Douglas a parting blessing gave, 
The tear that glisten 'd in his eye 
Drown'd not his purpose fix'd on high. 
My soul, though feminine and weak, 
Can image his ; e'en as the lake, 
Itself disturb 'd by slightest stroke, 2 
Reflects the invulnerable rock. 
He hears report of battle rife, 
He deems himself the cause of strife. 



Close moor'd by the lone islet's side. 
Since this rude race dare not abide 
Upon their native mountain side, 
Tis fit that Douglas should provide 
For his dear child some safe abode, 
And soon he comes to point the road."] 

1 [MS,—" No, Allan, no ! His words so kind 

Were but pretexts my fears to blind. 
When in such solemn tone and grave, 
Douglas a parting blessing gave."] 

2 [MS.— " Itself disturb'd by slightest shock, 

Reflects the adamantine rock."] 



116 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto TV, 

I saw him redden, when the theme 
Turn'd, Allan, on thine idle dream, 
Of Malcolm Graeme, in fetters bound, 
Which I, thou saidst, about him wound. 
Think'st thou he trow'd thine omen aught ? 
Oh no ! 'twas apprehensive thought 
For the kind youth, — for Roderick too~ 
(Let me be just) that friend so true ; 
In danger both, and in our cause ! 
Minstrel, the Douglas dare not pause. 
Why else that solemn warning given, 
6 If not on earth, we meet in heaven ! ' 
Why else, to Cambus-kenneth's fane, 
If eve return him not again, 
Am I to hie, and make me known ? 
Alas ! he goes to Scotland's throne, 
Buys his friend's safety with his own ; — 
He goes to do — what I had done, 
Had Douglas' daughter been his son !" — 

XL 

" Nay, lovely Ellen ! — dearest, nay ! 
If aught should his return delay, 
He only named yon holy fane 
As fitting place to meet again. 
Be sure he's safe ; and for the Graeme, — 
Heaven's blessing on his gallant name ! — 
My vision'd sight may yet prove true, 
Nor bode of ill to him or you. 
When did my gifted dream beguile ? 
Think of the stranger at the isle, 
And think upon the harpings slow, 
That presaged this approaching woe ! 



Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 117 

Sooth was my prophecy of fear ; 
Believe it when it augurs cheer. 
Would we had left this dismal spot ! 
Ill luck still haunts a fairy grot. 
Of such a wondrous tale I know — 
Dear lady, change that look of woe, 
My harp was wont thy grief to cheer. "— 

ELLEN. 

" Well, be it as thou wilt ; I hear, 
But cannot stop the bursting tear." 
The Minstrel tried his simple ait, 
But distant far was Ellen's heart. 

ALICE BRAND. 

Merry it is in the good greenwood, 

When the mavis 2 and merle 3 are singing, 

When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in 
cry, 
And the hunter's horn is ringing. 

" O Alice Brand, my native land 

Is lost for love of you ; 
And we must hold by wood and wold, 

As outlaws wont to do. 

" Alice, 'twas all for thy locks so bright, 
And 'twas all for thine eyes so blue, 

That on the night of our luckless flight, 
Thy brother bold I slew. 



i See Appendix, Note 2 T. 
2 Thrush. 3 Blackbird. 



118 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto IV. 

" Now must I teach to hew the beech, 

The hand that held the glaive, 
For leaves to spread our lowly bed, 

And stakes to fence our cave. 

" And for vest of pall, thy fingers small, 

That wont on harp to stray, 
A cloak must shear from the slaughter'd deer, 

To keep the cold away," — 

" O Richard ! if my brother died, 

Twas but a fatal chance ; 
For darkling was the battle tried, 

And fortune sped the lance. 1 

tt If pall and vair no more I wear, 

Nor thou the crimson sheen, 
As warm, we'll say, is the russet grey, 

As gay the forest-green. 

" And, Richard, if our lot be hard, 

And lost thy native land, 
Still Alice has her own Richard, 

And he his Alice Brand." 

XIII. 

SSaHatf tantinxttis. 

*Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good greenwood, 

So blithe Lady Alice is singing ; 
On the beech's pride, and oak's brown side, 

Lord Richard's axe is ringing. 

i [MS.— " 'Twas but a midnight chance ; 

For blindfold was the battle plied, 

And fortune held the lance."] 



Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 119 

Up spoke the moody Elfin King, 

Who wonn'd within the hill, — l 
like wind in the porch of a ruin'd church, 

His voice was ghostly shrill. 






" Why sounds yon stroke on beech and oak, 

Our moonlight circle's screen ? 2 

Or who comes here to chase the deer, 

Beloved of our Elfin Queen ? 3 
Or who may dare on wold to wear 

The fame's fatal green ? 4 

" Up, Urgan, up ! to yon mortal hie, 

For thou wert christen'd man ; 5 
For cross or sign thou wilt not fly, 

For mutter'd word or ban. 

" Lay on him the curse of the wither'd heart, 

The curse of the sleepless eye ; 
Till he wish and pray that his life would part, 

Nor yet find leave to die. 1 ' 

XIV. 

^aKatf arnttmtrtr. 

'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good greenwood, 
Though the birds have still'd their singing ', 

The evening blaze doth Alice raise, 
And Richard his fagots bringing. 



1 See Appendix, Note 2 U. 

2 [MS. — " Our fairy ringlet's screen."] 

3 See Appendix, Note 2 V. 

4 See Appendix, Note 2 W. 

5 See Appendix, Note 2 X. 



120 THE LADY OP THE LAKE. Canto IV. 

Up Urgan starts, that hideous dwarf, 

Before Lord Richard stands, 
And, as he cross'd and bless 'd himself, 
" I fear not sign," quoth the grisly elf, 

" That is made with bloody hands." 



But out then spoke she, Alice Brand, 

That woman void of fear, — 
" And if there's blood upon his hand, 

'Tis but the blood of deer." — , 

" Now loud thou liest, thou bold of mood ! 

It cleaves unto his hand, 
The stain of thine own kindly blood, 

The blood of Ethert Brand." 

Then forward stepp'd she, Alice Brand, 

And made the holy sign, — 
" And if there's blood on Richard's hand, 

A spotless hand is mine. 

" And I conjure thee, Demon elf, 

By Him whom Demons fear. 
To show us whence thou art thyself, 

And what thine errand here ?" — 



XV. 

SSallaSf ccmtimtdr, 

" 'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in Fairy-land, 

"When fairy birds are singing, 
When the court doth ride by the monarch's side, 

With bit and bridle ringing : 






Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 121 

" And gaily shines the Fairy-land — 

But all is glistening show, 1 
Like the idle gleam that December's beam 

Can dart on ice and snow. 

" And fading, like that varied gleam, 

Is our inconstant shape, 
Who now like knight and lady seem, 

And now like dwarf and ape. 

" It was between the night and day, 

When the Fairy King has power, 
That I sunk down in a sinful fray, 
And, 'twixt life and death, was snatch'd away 

To the joyless Elfin bower. 2 

" But wist I of a woman bold, 

Who thrice my brow durst sign, 
I might regain my mortal mold, 

As fair a form as thine." 

She cross'd him once — she cross'd him twice — 

That lady was so brave ; 
The fouler grew his goblin hue, 

The darker grew the cave. 

She cross'd him thrice, that lady bold ; 

He rose beneath her hand 
The fairest knight on Scottish mold, 

Her brother, Ethert Brand ! 



i See Appendix, Note 2 Y. 
2 See Appendix, Note 2 Z. 



122 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 



Canto IV 



Merry it is in good greenwood, 

When the mavis and merle are singing, 

But merrier were they in Dunfermline grey, 
When all the bells were ringing. 

XVI. 

Just as the minstrel sounds were staid, 

A stranger climb'd the steepy glade : 

His marshal step, his stately mien, 

His hunting suit of Lincoln green, 

His eager glance, remembrance claims — 

Tis Snowdoun's Knight, 'tis James Fitz-Jamee. 

Ellen beheld as in a dream, 

Then, starting, scarce suppress'd a scream : 

" O stranger ! in such hour of fear, 

What evil hap has brought thee here ?" — 

" An evil hap how can it be, 

That bids me look again on thee ? 

By promise bound, my former guide 

Met me betimes this morning tide, 

And marshaird, over bank and bourne, 

The happy path of my return." — 

" The happy path ! what ! said he nought 

Of war, of battle to be fought, 

Of guarded pass ?" — " No, by my faith ! 

Nor saw I aught could augur scathe.'" 

" Oh haste thee, Allan, to the kern, 

— Yonder his tartans I discern ; 

Learn thou his purpose, and conjure 

That he will guide the stranger sure ! — 

What prompted thee, unhappy man ? 

The meanest serf in Roderick's clan 

Had not been bribed by love or fear, 

Unknown to him to guide thee here." — 



Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 123 

XVII. 

64 Sweet Ellen, dear my life must be, 

Since it is worthy care from thee ; 

Yet life I hold but idle breath, 

When love or honour's weigh 'd with death. 

Then let me profit by my chance, 

And speak my purpose bold at once. 

1 come to bear thee from a wild, 
Where ne'er before such blossom smiled ; 
By this soft hand to lead thee far 

From frantic scenes of feud and war. 
Near Bochastle my horses wait ; l 
They bear us soon to Stirling gate. 
I'll place thee in a lovely bower, 

I'll guard thee like a tender flower" 

" O ! hush, Sir Knight ! 'twere female art, 

To say I do not read thy heart ; 

Too much, before, my selfish ear 

Was idly soothed my praise to hear. 2 

That fatal bait hath lured thee back, 

In deathful hour, o'er dangerous track ; 

And how, O how, can I atone 

The wreck my vanity brought on ! — 

One way remains — I'll tell him all — 

Yes ! struggling bosom, forth it shall ! 

Thou, whose light folly bears the blame, 

Buy thine own pardon with thy shame ! 

But first — my father is a man 

Outlaw'd and exiled, under ban ; 

The price of blood is on his head, 

With me 'twere infamy to wed. — 

Still wouldst thou speak ? — then hear the truth ! 

Fitz-James, there is a noble youth, — 

i [MS.—" By Cambitsmorc my horses wait."] 

2 [MS.—" Was iAlyfond thy praise to hear."J 



124 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto IV. 

If yet he is ! — exposed for me 
And mine to dread extremity — 
Thou hast the secret of my heart ; 
Forgive, be generous, and depart ! " 

XVIII. 

Fitz- James knew every wily train 

A lady's fickle heart to gain, 

But here he knew and felt them vain. 

There shot no glance from Ellen's eye, 

To give her steadfast speech the lie ; 

In maiden confidence she stood, 

Though mantled in her cheek the blood, 

And told her love with such a sigh 

Of deep and hopeless agony, 

As death had sealed her Malcolm's doom, 

And she sat sorrowing on his tomb. 

Hope vanish'd from Fitz-James's eye, 

But not with hope fled sympathy. 

He proffer 'd to attend her side, 

As brother would a sister guide 

" O ! little know'st thou Roderick's heart ! 

Safer for both we go apart. 

O haste thee, and from Allan learn, 

If thou mayst trust yon wily kern." 

With hand upon his forehead laid, 

The conflict of his mind to shade, 

A parting step or two he made ; 

Then, as some thought had cross 'd his brain, 

He paused, and turn'd, and came again. 

XIX. 

" Hear, lady, yet, a parting word ! 

It chanced in fight that my poor sword 

Preserved the life of Scotland's lord. 



Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 125 

This ring the grateful Monarch gave, 1 

And bade, when I had boon to crave, 

To bring it back, and boldly claim 

The recompense that I would name. 

Ellen, I am no courtly lord, 

But one who lives by lance and sword, 

Whose castle is his helm and shield, 

His lordship the embattled field. 

What from a prince can I demand, 

Who neither reck of state nor land ? 

Ellen, thy hand — the ring is thine ; 2 

Each guard and usher knows the sign. 

Seek thou the king without delay ; 3 

This signet shall secure thy way ; 

And claim thy suit, whate'er it be, 

As ransom of his pledge to me." 

He placed the golden circlet on, 

Paused — kiss'd her hand — and then was gone. 

The aged Minstrel stood aghast, 

So hastily Fitz-James shot past. 

He join'd his guide, and wending down 

The ridges of the mountain brown, 

Across the stream they took their way, 

That joins Loch Katrine to Achray. 

XX. 

All in the Trosach's glen was still, 
Noontide was sleeping on the hill : 

J [MS.—" This ring of gold the monarch gave "] 

2 [MS. — " Permit this hand— the ring is thine."] 

3 [MS.—" ' Seek thou the King, and on thy knee 

Put forth thy suit, whate'er it be, 
As ransom of his pledge to me ; 
My name and this shall make thy way.' 
He put the little signet on."] 



126 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto IV. 

Sudden his guide whoop 'd loud and high — 

" Murdoch ! was that a signal cry ? " 

He stammer 'd forth, — " I shout to scare 1 

Yon raven from his dainty fare." 

He looked — he knew the raven's prey, 

His own brave steed : — " Ah ! gallant grey ! 

For thee — for me, perchance — 'twere well 

We ne'er had seen the Trosach's dell 

Murdoch, move first — but silently ; 
Whistle or whoop, and thou shalt die ! " 
Jealous and sullen on they fared, 
Each silent, each upon his guard. 

XXI. 

Now wound the path its dizzy ledge 
Around a precipice's edge, 
When lo ! a wasted female form, 
Blighted by wrath of sun and storm, 
In tatter'd weeds and wild array, 2 
Stood on a cliff beside the way, 
And glancing round her restless eye, 
Upon the wood, the rock, the sky, 
Seem'd nought to mark, yet all to spy. 
Her brow was wreath'd with gaudy broom ; 
With gesture wild she waved a plume 
Of feathers, which the eagles fling 
To crag and cliff from dusky wing ; 
Such spoils her desperate step had sought, 
Where scarce was footing for the goat. 

1 [MS.—" He stammer'd forth confused reply : 

\ o aX ??'. -u + )l shouted but to scare 
' Sir Knight, ) 

Yon raven from his dainty fare."] 

2 [MS.— " Wrapp'd in a tatter'd mantle grey." 



Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 127 

The tartan plaid she first descried, 
And shriek'd till all the rocks replied ; 
As loud she laugh 'd when near they drew, 
For then the Lowland garb she knew ; 
And then her hands she wildly wrung, 
And then she wept, and then she sung — 
She sung ! — the voice, in better time, 
Perchance to harp or lute might chime ; 
And now, though strain'd and roughen'd, still 
Rung wildly sweet to dale and hill. 

XXII. 

They bid me sleep, they bid me pray, 

They say my brain is warp'd and wrung — 

I cannot sleep on Highland brae, 
I cannot pray in Highland tongue. 

But were I now where Allan 1 glides, 

Or heard my native Devan's tides, 

So sweetly would I rest, and pray 

That Heaven would close my wintry day. 

Twas thus my hair they bade me braid, 
They made me to the church repair ; 

It was my bridal mom they said, 
And my true love would meet me there. 

But woe betide the cruel guile, 

That drown'd in blood the morning smile ! 

And woe betide the fairy dream ! 

I only waked to sob and scream. 



1 [The Allan and Devan arc two beautiful streams, the latter 
celebrated in the poetry of Burns, which descend from the hills of 
Perthshire into the great carse, or plain, of Stirling.] 



128 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto TV. 

XXIII. 

" Who is this maid, what means her lay ? 

She hovers o'er the hollow way. 

And flutters wide her mantle grey, 

As the lone heron spreads his wing, 

By twilight, o'er a haunted spring." — 

" Tis Blanche of Devan," Murdoch said, 1 

" A crazed and captive lowland maid, 

Ta'en on the morn she was a bride, 

When Roderick foray 'd De van-side. 

The gay bridegroom resistance made, 

And felt our Chief's unconquer'd blade. 

I marvel she is now at large, 

But oft she 'scapes from Maudlin's charge.—. 

Hence, brain-sick fool !" — He raised his bow : — 

" Now, if thou strikest her but one blow, 

I'll pitch thee from the cliff as far 

As ever peasant pitch'd a bar !" — 

" Thanks, champion, thanks f" the Maniac cried, 

And press'd her to Fitz-James's side. 

" See the grey pennons I prepare, 2 

To seek my true-love through the air ! 

I will not lend that savage groom, 3 

To break his fall, one downy plume ! 

No ! — deep amid disjointed stones, 

The wolves shall batten on his bones, 



1 [MS.—" ' A Saxon born, a crazy maid — 

'Tis Blanche of Devan/ Murdoch said."— • 

2 [MS. — " With thee these pennons will I share, 

Then seek my true love through the air."] 

3 [MS. — " But I'll not lend that savage groom, 

To break his fall, one downy plume ! 
Deep, deep, 'mid yon disjointed stones, 
The wolf shall batten on his bones."] 



Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 129 

And then shall his detested plaid, 
By bush and brier in mid air staid, 
Wave forth a banner fair and free, 
Meet signal for their revelry." — 

XXIV. 

66 Hush thee, poor maiden, and be still !" — 

" O ! thou look'st kindly, and I will 

Mine eye has dried and wasted been. 
But still it loves the Lincoln green ; 
And, though mine ear is all unstrung, 
Still, still it loves the Lowland tongue. 

" For O my sweet William was forester true, 1 
He stole poor Blanche's heart away ; 

His coat it was all of the greenwood hue, 
And so blithely he trilTd the Lowland lay ! 

" It was not that I meant to tell . . . 
But thou art wise, and guessest well." 
Then, in a low and broken tone, 
And hurried note, the song went on. 
Still on the Clansman, fearfully, 
She fix'd her apprehensive eye ; 
Then turn'd it on the Knight, and then 
Her look glanced wildly o'er the glen. 

XXV. 
tt The toils are pitch'd, and the stakes are set, 
Ever sing merrily, merrily ; 

l [MS.— " Sweet William was a woodsman true, 
He stole poor Blanche's heart away ! 
His coat was of the forest hue, 
And sweet he sung the Lowland lay."] 



130 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto IV. 

The bows they bend, and the knives they whet, 
Hunters live so cheerily. 

" It was a stag, a stag of ten, 1 

Bearing his branches sturdily ; 
He came stately down the glen, 

Ever sing hardily, hardily. 

" It was there he met with a wounded doe, 

She was bleeding deathfully ; 
She warn'd him of the toils below, 

O, so faithfully, faithfully ! 

" He had an eye, and he could heed, 

Ever sing warily, warily ; 
He had a foot, and he could speed — 

Hunters watch so narrowly." 

XXVI. 

Fitz-James*s mind was passion-toss'd, 
When Ellen's hints and fears were lost ; 
But Murdoch's shout suspicion wrought, 

And Blanche's song conviction brought 

Not like a stag that spies the snare, 
But lion of the hunt aware, 
He waved at once his blade on high, 
" Disclose thy treachery, or die !" 
Forth at full speed the Clansman flew, 2 
But in his race his bow he drew. 



Having ten branches on his antlers. 
■ [MS. — " Forth at full speed the Clansman went ; 
But in his race his how he bent, 
Halted— and back an arrow sent."] 



Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 131 

The shaft just grazed Fitz- James's crest, 

And thrilTd in Blanche's faded breast, — 

Murdoch of Alpine ! prove thy speed, 

For ne'er had Alpine's son such need ! 

With heart of lire, and foot of wind, 

The fierce avenger is behind ! 

Fate judges of the rapid strife — 

The forfeit death — the prize is life ! 

Thy kindred ambush lies before, 

Close couch'd upon the heathery moor ; 

Them couldst thou reach !— it may not be — v 

Thine ambush'd kin thou ne'er shalt see. 

The fiery Saxon gains on thee ! 

— Resistless speeds the deadly thrust, 

As lightning strikes the pine to dust ; 

With foot and hand Fitz- James must strain, 

Ere he can win his blade again. 

Bent o'er the fall'n, with falcon eye, 2 

He grimly smiled to see him die ; 

Then slower wended back his way, 

Where the poor maiden bleeding lay. 

XXVII. 

She sate beneath the birchen-tree, 
Her elbow resting on her knee ; 
She had withdrawn the fatal shaft, 
And gazed on it, and feebly laugh'd ; 



i [MS. "It may not be — 

The fiery Saxon gains on thee, 

Thine ambush'd kin thou ne'er shalt see ! 

Resistless as the lightning's flame, 

The thrust betwixt his shoulder came."] 

2 [MS. — " Then o'er him hung, with falcon eye, 
And grimly smil'd to see him die."] 



132 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto IV. 

Her wreath of broom and feathers grey 
Daggled with blood, beside her lay. 

The Knight to stanch the life-stream tried, 

" Stranger, it is in vain !" she cried. 
" This hour of death has given me more 
Of reason's power than years before ; 
For, as these ebbing veins decay, 
My frenzied visions fade away. 
A helpless injured wretch I die, 1 
And something tells me in thine eye, 
That thou wert mine avenger born. — 
Seest thou this tress ? — O ! still I've worn 
This little tress of yellow hair, 
Thiough danger, frenzy, and despair ! 
It once was bright and clear as thine, 
But blood and tears have dimm'd its shine. 
I will not tell thee when 'twas shred, 
Nor from what guiltless victim's head — 
My brain would turn ! — but it shall wave 2 
Like plumage on thy helmet brave, 
Till sun and wind shall bleach the stain, 

And thou wilt bring it me again 

I waver still O God ! more bright 

Let reason beam her parting light ! — 
O ! by thy knighthood's honour'd sign, 
And for thy life preserved by mine, 
When thou shalt see a darksome man, 
Who boasts him Chief of Alpine's clan, 
With tartans broad and shadowy plume, 
And hand of blood, and brow of gloom, 



1 [MS. — ",A guiltless injured wretch I die."] 

2 [MS.— ." But now, my champion,— -it shall ware."] 



Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 133 

Be thy heart bold, thy weapon strong, 
And wreak poor Blanche of De van's wrong ! — 
They watch for thee by pass and fell . . . 
Avoid the path . . . O God ! . . . farewell." 

XXVIII. 

A kindly heart had brave Fitz- James ; 

Fast pour'd his eyes at pity's claims, 

And now, with mingled grief and ire, 

He saw the murder'd maid expire. 

" God, in my need, be my relief, 1 

As I wreak this on yonder Chief!" 

A lock from Blanche's tresses fair 

He blended with her bridegroom's hair ; 

The mingled braid in blood he dyed, 

And placed it on his bonnet-side : 

" By Him, whose word is truth ! I swear, 

No other favour will I wear, 

Till this sad token I imbrue 

In the best blood of Roderick Dhu ! 

— But hark ! what means yon faint halloo ? 

The chase is up, — but they shall know, 

The stag at bay's a dangerous foe." 

Barr'd from the known but guarded way, 

Through copse and cliffs Fitz-James must stray, 

And oft must change his desperate track, 

By stream and precipice turn'd back. 

Heartless, fatigued, and faint, at length, 

From lack of food and loss of strength, 

He couch 'd him in a thicket hoar, 

And thought his toils and perils o'er : — 

1 [MS. — " God in my need, to me be true, 
As I wreak this on Roderick Dhu.""} 



134 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto IV, 

" Of all my rash adventures past, 

This frantic feat must prove the last ! 

Who e'er so mad but might have guess'd, 

That all this Highland hornet's nest 

Would muster up in swarms so soon 

As e'er they heard of bands at Doune ?— 

Like bloodhounds now they search me out, — 

Hark, to the whistle and the shout ! — 

If farther through the wilds I go, 

I only fall upon the foe : 

111 couch me here till evening grey, 

Then darkling try my dangerous way." 

XXIX. 

The shades of eve come slowly down, 

The woods are wrapt in deeper brown, 

The owl awakens from her dell, 

The fox is heard upon the fell ; 

Enough remains of glimmering light 

To guide the wanderer's steps aright, 

Yet not enough from far to show 

His figure to the watchful foe. 

With cautious step, and ear awake, 

He climbs the crag and threads the brake *, 

And not the summer solstice, there, 

Temper'd the midnight mountain air, 

But every breeze, that swept the wold, 

Benumb'd his drenched limbs with cold. 

In dread, in danger, and alone, 

Famish'd and chill'd, through ways unknown, 

Tangled and steep, he journey 'd on ; 

Till, as a rock's huge point he turn'd, 

A watch-fire close before him burn'd. 






Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 135 

XXX. 

Beside its embers red and clear, 1 

Bask'd, in his plaid, a mountaineer ; 

And up he sprung with sword in hand, — 

" Thy name and purpose ! Saxon, stand ! " — 

u A stranger." — " What dost thou require ?" — 

w Rest and a guide, and food and fire. 

My life's beset, my path is lost, 

The gale has chill'd my limbs with frost."— 

" Art thou a friend to Roderick ?" — " No." — 

" Thou darest not call thyself a foe ? " — 

" I dare ! to him and all the band 2 

He brings to aid his murderous hand." 

" Bold words ! — but, though the beast of game 

The privilege of chase may claim, 

Though space and law the stag we lend, 

Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend, 

"Who ever reck'd, where, how, or when, 

The prowling fox was trapp'd or slain ? 3 

Thus treacherous scouts, — yet sure they lie, 

Who say thou earnest a secret spy !" — 

" They do, by heaven ! — Come Roderick Dhu, 

And of his clan the boldest two, 

And let me but till morning rest, 

I write the falsehood on their crest." — 

" If by the blaze I mark aright, 

Thou bear'st the belt and spur of Knight." — 

" Then by these tokens mayst thou know 

Each proud oppressor's mortal foe." — 

i [MS. — " By the decaying flame was laid 
A warrior in his Highland plaid. "] 

8 [MS. — " I dare ! to him and all the swarm 

He brings to aid his murderous arm."l 

s See Appendix, Note 3 A. 



136 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto IV. 

" Enough, enough ; sit down and share 
A soldier's couch, a soldier's fare." 

XXXI. 

He gave him of his Highland cheer, 

The harden'd flesh of mountain deer \ l 

Dry fuel on the fire he laid, 

And bade the Saxon share his plaid. 

He tended him like welcome guest, 

Then thus his further speech address'd. 

" Stranger, I am to Roderick Dhu, 

A clansman horn, a kinsman true ; 

Each word against his honour spoke, 

Demands of me avenging stroke ; 

Yet more, — upon my fate, 'tis said, 

A mighty augury is laid. 

It rests with me to wind my horn, — 

Thou art with numbers overborne ; 

It rests with me, here, brand to brand, 

Worn as thou art, to bid thee stand : 

But, not for clan, nor kindred's cause, 

Will I depart from honour's laws ; 

To assail a wearied man were shame, 

And stranger is a holy name ; 

Guidance and rest, and food and fire, 

In vain he never must require. 

Then rest thee here till dawn of day ; 

Myself will guide thee on the way, 

O'er stock and stone, through watch and ward, 

Till past Clan- Alpine's outmost guard, 

As far as Coilantogle's ford ; 

From thence thy warrant is thy sword." 

• See Appendix, Note 3 B. 



Canto IV. THE PROPHECY. 1 37 

" I take thy courtesy, by Heaven, 
As freely as 'tis nobly given !" — 
" Well, rest thee ; for the bittern's cry 
Sings us the lake's wild lullaby." 
With that he shook the gather'd heath, 
And spread his plaid upon the wreath ; 
And the brave foemen, side by side, 
Lay peaceful down like brothers tried, 
And slept until the dawning beam x 
Purpled the mountain and the stream. ^ 

* [MS. — " And slept until the dawning streak 
Purpled the mountain and the lake,"] 



[ 139 ] 



LADY OF THE LAKE. 






CANTO FIFTH. 



€f)£ Camiat 



I. 

Fair as the earliest beam of eastern light, 

When first, by the bewilder'd pilgrim spied, 
It smiles upon the dreary brow of night, 

And silvers o'er the torrent's foaming tide, 
And lights the fearful path on mountain side ; — 1 

Fair as that beam, although the fairest far, 
Giving to horror grace, to danger pride, 

Shine martial Faith, and Courtesy's bright star, 
Through all the wreckful storms that cloud the brow of 
War. 

IL 

That early beam, so fair and sheen, 
Was tinkling through the Jrazel screen, 

[MS. — " And lights the fearful way along its side."] 



HO THE LADY OF THE LAKE. CwntO V. 

When, rousing at its glimmer red, 
The warriors left their lowly bed, 
, Look'd out upon the dappled sky, 

Mutter'd their soldier matins by, 
And then awaked their fire, to steal, 
As short and rude, their soldier meal. 
That o'er, the Gael l around him threw 
His graceful plaid of varied hue, 
And, true to promise, led the way, 
By thicket green and mountain grey. 
A wildering path ! — they winded now 
Along the precipice's brow, 
Commanding the rich scenes beneath 
The windings of the Forth and Teith, 
And all the vales between that lie, 
Till Stirling's turrets melt in sky ; 
Then, sunk in copse, their farthest glance 
Gain'd not the length of horseman's lance. 
Twas oft so steep, the foot was fain 
Assistance from the hand to gain ; 
So tangled oft, that, bursting through, 
Each hawthorn shed her showers of dew, — 
That diamond dew, so pure and clear, 
It rivals all but Beauty's tear ! 

III. 

At length they came where, stern and steep, 1 
The hill sinks down upon the deep. 
Here Vennachar in silver flows, 
There, ridge on ridge, Benledi rose ; 

i The Scottish Highlander calls himself Gael, or Gaul, and terms 
the Lowlanders, Sassetmch, or Saxons. 

2 [MS.—" At length they paced the mountain's side, 
And saw beneath the waters wide."! 



Canto V. THE COMBAT. 141 

Ever the hollow path twined on, 

Beneath steep bank and threatening stone ; 

An hundred men might hold the post 

With hardihood against a host. 

The rugged mountain's scanty cloak 

Was dwarfish shrubs of birch and oak, 1 

With shingles bare, and cliffs between, 

And patches bright of bracken green, 

And heather black, that waved so high, 

It held the copse in rivalry. 

But where the lake slept deep and still, 

Dank osiers fringed the swamp and hill ; 

And oft both path and hill were torn, 

Where wintry torrents down had borne, 

And heap'd upon the cumber'd land 

Its wreck of gravel, rocks, and sand. 

So toilsome was the road to trace, 

The guide, abating of his pace, 

Led slowly through the pass's jaws, 

And ask'd Fitz-James, by what strange cause 

He sought these wilds ? traversed by few, 

Without a pass from Roderick Dhu. 

IV. 

" Brave Gael, my pass, in danger tried, 
Hangs in my belt, and by my side ; 
Yet, sooth to tell," the Saxon said, 
" I dreamt not now to claim its aid. 2 
When here, but three days since, I came, 
Bewilderd in pursuit of game, 

1 |_MS. — " The rugged mountain's stunted screen 

Was dwarfish { shrabs \ with cliffs between."] 
I copse / J 

2 [MS, — "I dreamed net now to draw my blade."] 



142 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto V. 

All seem'd as peaceful and as still, 
As the mist slumbering on yon hill ; 
Thy dangerous Chief was then afar, 
Nor soon expected back from war. 
Thus said at least, my mountain-guide, 
Though deep perchance the villain lied." — 
" Yet why a second venture try ?" — 
" A warrior thou, and ask me why ! — 
Moves our free course by such fix'd cause, 
As gives the poor mechanic laws ? 
Enough, I sought to drive away 
The lazy hours of peaceful day ; 
Slight cause will then suffice to guide 
A Knight's free footsteps far and wide, — x 
A falcon flown, a greyhound stray'd, 
The merry glance of mountain maid : 
Or, if a path be dangerous known, 
The danger's self is lure alone." — 

" Thy secret keep, I urge thee not ; — 2 
Yet, ere again ye sought this spot, 
Say, heard ye nought of Lowland war, 
Against Clan- Alpine, raised by Mar ?" 
— " No, by my word ; — of bands prepared 
To guard King James's sports I heard ; 
Nor doubt I aught, but, when they hear 
This muster of the mountaineer, 
Their pennons will abroad be flung, ' 
Which else in Doune had peaceful hung." — 3 

1 [MS.-- My errant footsteps j faf and wMa .»-, 

A knight s bold wanderings ) J 

2 [MS. — " Thy secret keep, I ask it not."] 

3 [MS.—" Which else in hall had peaceful hung."] 



rrfO V. THE COMBAT. 143 

" Free be they filing ! for we were loth 
Their silken folds should feast the moth. 
Free be they flung ! — as free shall wave 
Clan- Alpine's pine in banner brave. 
But, Stranger, peaceful since you came, 
Bewilder'd in the mountain game, 
Whence the bold boast by which you show 
Vich- Alpine's vow"d and mortal foe ?" 
4i Warrior, but yester-rnom, I knew 
Nought of thy Chieftain, Roderick Dhu, 
Save as an outlaw *d desperate man, 
The chief of a rebellious clan, 
Who, in the Regent's court and sight, 
With ruffian dagger stabVd a knight : 
Yet this alone might from his part 
Sever each true and loyal heart." 

YI. 

Wrothful at such arraignment foul, 
Dark lower'd the clansman's sable scowl, 
A space he paused, then sternly said, 
M And heard'st thou why he drew his blade ? 
Heard 'st thou that shameful word and blow 
Brought Roderick's vengeance on his foe ? 
What reck'd the Chieftain if he stood 
On Highland heath, or Holy-Rood ? 
He rights such wrong where it is given, 
If it were in the court of heaven." 
" Still was it outrage \ — yet, 'tis true, 
Not then claim'd sovereignty his due ; 
While Albany, with feeble hand, 
Held borrow'd truncheon of command, 
The young King, mew'd in Stirling tower, 
Was stranger to respect and power. 1 
i See Appendix* Note 3 C, 



144 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto V, 

But then, thy Chieftain's robber life ! 
Winning mean prey by causeless strife, 
Wrenching from ruin'd Lowland swain 
His herds and harvest rear'd in vain. 
Methinks a soul, like thine, should scorn 
The spoils from such foul foray borne. " 

VII. 

The Gael beheld him grim the while, 
And answer'd with disdainful smile,—. 
" Saxon, from yonder mountain high, 
I mark'd thee send delighted eye, . 
Far to the south and east, where lay, 
Extended in succession gay, 
Deep waving fields and pastures green, 
With gentle slopes and groves between : — 
These fertile plains, that soften 'd vale, 
Were once the birthright of the Gael ; 
The stranger came with iron hand, 
And from our fathers reft the land. 
Where dwell we now ! See rudely swell 
Crag over crag, and fell o'er fell. 
Ask we this savage hill we tread, 
For fatten'd steer or household bread ; 
Ask we for flocks these shingles dry, 
And well the mountain might reply, — 
4 To you, as to your sires of yore, 
Belong the target and claymore ! 
I give you shelter in my breast, 
Your own good blades must win the rest.' 
Pent in this fortress of the North, 
Think'st thou we will not sally forth, 
To spoil the spoiler as we may, 
And from the robber rend the prey ? 



Canto V, THE COMBAT. 145 

Ay, by my soul ! — While on yon plain 

The Saxon rears one shock of grain ; 

While, of ten thousand herds, there strays 

But one along j T on river's maze, — 

The Gael, of plain and river heir, 

Shall, with strong hand, redeem his share. 

Where live the mountain Chiefs who hold 

That plundering Lowland field and fold 

Is aught but retribution true ? 

Seek other cause 'gainst Roderick Dhu." — l 

VIII. 

Answer'd Fitz-James,— " And, if I sought, 
Think'st thou no other could be brought ? 
' What deem ye of my path waylaid ? 
I ' My life given o'er to ambuscade ? " — 
" As of a meed to rashness due : 
Hadst thou sent warning fair and true,-* 
I seek my hoimd, or falcon stray VI, 
I seek, good faith, a Highland maid,— . 
Free hadst thou been to come and go ; 
But secret path marks secret foe. 
Nor yet, for this, even as a spy, 
Hadst thou, unheard, "been doom'd to die, 
Save to fulfil an augury." — 
" Well, let it pass \ nor will I now 
Fresh cause of enmity avow, 
To chafe thy mood and cloud thy brow. 
Enough, I am by promise tied 
To match me with this man of pride : 
Twice have I sought Clan- Alpine's glen 
In peace ; but when I come agen, 

1 See Appendix, Note 3 D. 



146 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto V. 

I come with banner, brand, and bow, 

As leader seeks his mortal foe. 

For love-lorn swain, in lady's bower, 

Ne'er panted for the appointed hour, 

As I, until before me stand 

This rebel Chieftain and his band ! " l 

IX. 

" Have, then, thy wish ! " — he whistled shrill, 

And he was answer'd from the hill ; 

Wild as the scream of the curlew, 

From crag to crag the signal flew. 2 

Instant, through copse and heath, arose 

Bonnets, and spears, and bended bows ; 

On right, on left, above, below, 

Sprung up at once the lurking foe \ 

From shingles grey their lances start, 

The bracken bush sends forth the dart, 3 

The rushes and the willow-wand 

Are bristling into axe and brand, 

And every tuft of broom gives life 4 

To plaided warrior arm'd for strife. 

That whistle garrison'd the glen 

At once with full five hundred men, 

As if the yawning hill to heaven 

A subterranean host had given. 



1 CMS.-" Thia dark Sir Roderick | andhis band> „ 3 

This savage Chieftain ) 

2 [MS. — " From copse to copse the signal hew. 

Instant, through copse and crags, arose."] 

3 TMS.—" The bracken bush shoots forth the dart."] 

4 [MS. — " And each lone tuft of broom gives life 

To plaided warrior arm'd for strife. 
. That whistle manned the lonely glen 
With full five hundred armed men."~\ 



Canto V. THE COMBAT. 147 

Watching their leader's beck and will, 1 

All silent there they stood, and still. 

Like the loose crags whose threatening mass 

Lay tottering o'er the hollow pass, 

As if an infant's touch could urge 

Their headlong passage down the verge, 

With step and weapon forward flung, 

Upon the mountain-side they hung. 

The Mountaineer cast glance of pride 

Along Benledi's living side, 

Then fix'd his eye and sable brow 

Full on Fitz-James — " How say'st thou now ? 

These are Clan- Alpine's warriors true ; 

And, Saxon, — I am Roderick Dhu ! n 

X. 

Fitz-James was brave : — Though to his heart 
The life-blood thrill'd with sudden start, 
He mann'd himself with dauntless air, 
Return'd the Chief his haughty stare, 
His back against a rock he bore, 
And firmly placed his foot before : — 
" Come one, come all ! this rock shall fly 
From its firm base as soon as I." 
Sir Roderick mark'd — and in his eyes 
Respect was mingled with surprise, 
And the stern joy which warriors feel 
In foemen worthy of their steel. 



1 FMS. — (i All silent, too, they stood, and still 
Watching their leader's heck and will, 
While forward step and weapon show 
They long to rush upon the foe, 
Like the loose crags, whose tottering mass 
Hung threatening o'er the hollow pass.""} 



148 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto V. 

Short space he stood — then waved his hand : 
Down sunk the disappearing band ; 
Each warrior vanish'd where he stood, 
In broom or bracken, heath or wood ; 
Sunk brand, and spear, and bended bow, 
In osiers pale and copses low ; 
It seem'd as if their mother Earth 
Had swallow'd up her warlike birth. 
The wind's last breath had toss'd in air, 
Pennon, and plaid, and plumage fair, — 
The next but swept a lone hill-side, 
Where heath and fern were waving wide : 
The sun's last glance was glinted back, 
From spear and glaive, from targe and jack, — 
The next, all unreflected, shone 
On bracken green, and cold grey stone. 

XL 

Fitz- James look'd round — yet scarce believed 

The witness that his sight received ; 

Such apparition well might seem 

Delusion of a dreadful dream. 

Sir Roderick in suspense he eyed, 

And to his look the Chief replied, 

u Fear nought — nay, that I need not say — 

But — doubt not aught from mine array. 

Thou art my guest \ — I pledged my word 

As far as Coilantogle ford : 

Nor would I call a clansman's brand 

For aid against one valiant hand, 1 

Though on our strife lay every vale 

Rent by the Saxon from the Gael. 

i [MS.—" For aid against one brave man's hand."] 



Canto V. THE COMBAT. 149 

So move we on ; — I only meant 
To show the reed on which you leant, 
Deeming this path you might pursue 
Without a pass from Roderick Dhu." 1 
They moved ; — I said Fitz- James was brave, 
As ever knight that belted glaive *, 
Yet dare not say, that now his blood 
Kept on its wont and temper'd flood, 
As, following Roderick's stride, he drew 
That seeming lonesome pathway through, 
Which yet, by fearful proof, was rife 
With lances, that, to take his life, 
Waited but signal from a guide, 
So late dishonoured and defied. 
Ever, by stealth, his eye sought round 
The vanish'd guardians of the ground, 
And still, from copse and heather deep, 
Fancy saw spear and broadsword peep, 2 
And in the plover's shrilly strain, 
The signal whistle heard again. 
Nor breathed he free till far behind 
The pass was left ; for then they wind 
Along a wide and level green, 
Where neither tree nor tuft was seen, 
Nor rush nor bush of broom was near, 
To hide a bonnet or a spear. 

XII. 

The Chief in silence strode before, 

And reach 'd that torrent's sounding shore, 



i See Appendix, Note 3 E. 

2 [MS. — " And still, from copse and heather bush, 
Fancy saw spear and broadsword rush."] 



1 50 THE LADY OP THE LAKE. Cdtlio V. 

Which, daughter of three mighty lakes, 

From Vennachar in silver breaks, 

Sweeps through the plain, and ceaseless mines 

On Bochastle the mouldering lines, 1 

Where Rome, the Empress of the world, 

Of yore her eagle wings unfurl'd : 2 

And here his course the Chieftain staid, 

Threw down his target and his plaid, 

And to the Lowland warrior said : — 

" Bold Saxon ! to his promise just, 

Vich- Alpine has discharged his trust. 

This murderous Chief, thi3 ruthless man, 

This head of a rebellious clan, 

Hath led thee safe, through watch and ward, 

Far past Clan- Alpine's outmost guard. 

Now, man to man, and steel to steel, 

A Chieftain's vengeance thou shalt feel. 

See, here, all vantageless I stand, 

Arm'd, like thyself, with single brand : 3 

For this is Coilantogle ford, 

And thou must keep thee with thy sword." 

XIII. 

The Saxon paused : — " I ne'er delay 'd, 
When foeman bade me draw my blade ; 
Nay more, brave Chief, I vow'd thy death : 
Yet sure thy fair and generous faith, 
And my deep debt for life preserved, 
A better meed have well deserved : 
Can nought but blood our feud atone ? 
Are there no means ? " — " No, Stranger, none ! 

1 [MS. — " On Boch&stle the martial lines."] 

2 See Appendix, Note 3 F. 

3 See Appendix, Note 3 G. 



Canto V. THE COMBAT. 151 

And hear, — to fire thy flagging zealy— * 
The Saxon cause rests on thy steel : 
For thus spoke Fate, by prophet bred 
Between the living and the dead ; 
* Who spills the foremost foeman's life, 
His party conquers in the strife.' "— 
" Then, by my word," the Saxon said, 
" Thy riddle is already read. 
Seek yonder brake beneath the cliff, — 
There lies Red Murdoch, stark and stiff. 
Thus Fate has solved her prophecy, 
Then yield to Fate, and not to me. 
To James, at Stirling, let us go, 
When, if thou wilt be still his foe, 
Or if the King shall not agree 
To grant thee grace -and favour free, 
I plight mine honour, oath, and word, 
That, to thy native strengths restored, 
With each advantage shalt thou stand, 
That aids thee now to guard thy land." 

XIV. 

Dark lightning flash'd from Roderick's eye — * 
" Soars thy presumption, then, so high, 
Because a wretched kern ye slew, 
Homage to name to Roderick Dhu ? 
He yields not, he, to man nor Fate ! 2 
Thou add'st but fuel to my hate : — 
My clansman's blood demands revenge. — 
Not yet prepared ? — By heaven, I change 

i [MS.—" In lightning flash'd the Chief's dark eye."] 
2 [MS.-" He stoop* not, he, to James nor Fate."] 



152 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto V. 

My thought, and hold thy valour light 
As that of some vain carpet knight, 
Who ill deserved my courteous care, 
And whose hest boast is but to wear 
A braid of his fair lady's hair." — 
— " I thank thee, Roderick, for the word ! 
It nerves my heart, it steels my sword ; 
For I have sworn this braid to stain 
In the best blood that warms thy vein. 
Now, truce, farewell ! and, ruth, begone ! 
Yet think not that by thee alone, 
Proud Chief ! can courtesy be shown ; 
Though not from copse* or heath, or cairn, 
Start at my whistle clansmen stern, 
Of this small horn one feeble blast 
Would fearful odds against thee cast. 
But fear not — doubt not — which thou wilt — 
We try this quarrel hilt to hilt." 
Then each at once his falchion drew, 
Each on the ground his scabbard threw, 
Each look'd to sun, and stream, and plain, 
As what they ne'er might see again ; 
Then foot, and point, and eye opposed, 
In dubious strife they darkly closed. 

XV. 

Ill fared it then with Roderick Dhu, 
That on the field his targe he threw, 1 
Whose brazen studs and tough bull-hide 
Had death so often dash'd aside ; 
For, train'd abroad his arms to wield, 
Fitz-James's blade was sword and shield. 2 

1 See Appendix, Note 3 H. 

2 Ibid. 3 I. 



Canto V. THE COMBAT. J 53 

He practised every pass and ward, 
To thrust, to strike, to feint, to guard • 
While less expert, though stronger far, 
The Gael maintain'd unequal war. 1 
Three times in closing strife they stood, 
And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood ; 
No stinted drought, no scanty tide, 
The gushing flood the tartans dyed. 
Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain, 
And shower'd his blows like wintry rain ; 
And, as firm rock, or castle-roof, 
Against the winter shower is proof, 
The foe, invulnerable still, 
FoiPd his wild rage by steady skill ; 
Till, at advantage ta'en, his brand 
Forced Roderick's weapon from his hand, 
And backward borne upon the lea, 
Brought the proud Chieftain to his knee. 2 

XVI. 

" Now, yield thee, or by Him who made 

The world, thy heart's blood dyes my blade !" 

" Thy threats, thy mercy, I defy ! 
Let recreant yield, who fears to die." 3 
— Like adder darting from his coil, 
Like wolf that dashes through the toil, 
Like mountain-cat who guards her young, 
Full at Fitz-James's throat he sprung ; 4 

1 [MS.—" Not Roderick thus, though stronger far, 

More tall and more inured to war."] 

2 [This couplet is not in the MS.] 

3 See Appendix, Note 3 K. 
4 j_MS. — " ' Yield they alone -who fear to die.' 

Like mountain-cat who guards her young, 
Full at Fitz-James's throat he sprung."] 



154 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto V. 

Receiv'd, but reck'd not of a wound, 
And lock'd his arms his foeman round. — 
Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own ! 
No maiden's hand is round thee thrown ! 
That desperate grasp thy frame might feel, 
Through bars of brass and triple steel ! — 
They tug, they strain ! down, down they go, 
The Gael above, Fitz-James below, 
The Chieftain's gripe his throat compress'd, 
His knee was planted in his breast ; 
His clotted locks he backward threw, 
Across his brow his hand he drew, 
From blood and mist to clear his sight, 
Then gleam'd aloft his dagger bright ! — 
— But hate and fury ill supplied 
The stream of life's exhausted tide, 
And all too late the advantage came, 
To turn the odds of deadly game .; 
For, while the dagger gleam'd on high, 
Reel'd soul and sense, reel'd brain and eydj 
Down came the blow ! but in the heath 
The erring blade found bloodless sheath. 
The struggling foe may now unclasp 
The fainting Chief's relaxing grasp ; 
Unwounded from the dreadful close, 
But breathless all, Fitz-James arose. 1 

XVIL 

He falter'd thanks to Heaven for life, 
Hedeem'd, unhoped, from desperate strife ; 2 

i [MS. — " Panting and breathless on the sands, 

But all unwounded, now he stands."] 
2 [MS. — " Hedeem'd, unhoped, from deadly sink 

Next on his foe his look he / ^ U 
i threw. 

Whose eTory breath appear'd his last."] 



Canto V. THE COMBAT. 155 

Next on his foe his look he cast, 

"Whose every gasp appear'd his last ; 

In Roderick's gore he dipp'd the braid, — 

" Poor Blanche ! thy wrongs are dearly paid : 

Yet with thy foe must die, or live, 

The praise that Faith and Valour give." 

With that he blew a bugle-note, 

Undid the collar from his throat, 

Unbonneted, and by the wave 

Sat down his brow and hands to lave. 

Then faint afar are heard the feet 1 

Of rushing steeds in gallop fleet ; 

The sounds increase, and now are seen 

Four mounted squires in Lincoln green ; 

Two who bear lance, and two who lead, 

By loosen'd rein, a saddled steed ; 

Each onward held his headlong course, 

And by Fitz-James rein'd up his horse, — 

With wonder view'd the bloody spot — 

" Exclaim not, gallants ! question not.— 

You, Herbert and Luifness, alight, 

And bind the wounds of yonder knight ; 

Let the grey palfrey bear his weight, 

We destined for a fairer freight, 

And bring him on to Stirling straight ; 

I will before at better speed, 

To seek fresh horse and fitting weed. 

The sun rides high ; — I must be boune, 

To see the archer game at noon ; 

But lightly Bayard clears the lea 

De Vaux and Herries, follow me. 



l [MS.—" Faint and afar arc heard the feet."] 



156 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. C(l?lto V. 

XVIII. 

rt Stand, Bayard, stand !" — the steed obeyM, 
With arching neck and bended head, 
And glancing eye and quivering ear, 
As if he loved his lord to hear. 
No foot Fitz-James in stirrup staid, 
No grasp upon the saddle laid, 
But wreath'd his left hand in the mane, 
And lightly bounded from the plain. 
Turn'd on the horse his armed heel, 
And stirr'd his courage with the steel. 
Bounded the fiery steed in air, 
The rider sate erect and fair, 
Then like a bolt from steel crossbow 
Forth launch M, along the plain they go. 
They dash'd that rapid torrent through, 
And up Carhonie's hill they flew ; 
Still at the gallop prick'd the Knight, 
His merry-men follow'd as they might. 
Along thy banks, swift Teith ! they ride, 
And in the race they mock thy tide ; 
Torry and Lendrick now are past, 
And Deanstown lies behind them cast ; 
They rise, the banner'd towers of Doune, 1 
They sink in distant woodland soon ; 
Blair-Drummond sees the hoofs strike fire, 2 
They sweep like breeze through Ochtertyre ; 
They mark just glance and disappear 
The lofty brow of ancient Kier ; 



1 [The ruins of Doune Castle, formerly the residence of the Earls 
of Menteith, now the property of the Earl of Moray, are situated 
at the confluence of the Ardoch and the Teith.] 

2 [MS. — " Blair-Drummond saw their hoofs of fire."] 



Canto V. THE COMBAT. 157 

They bathe their coursers' sweltering sides, 
Dark Forth ! amid thy sluggish tides, 
And on the opposing shore take ground, 
With plash, with scramble, and with bound. 
Right-hand they leave thy cliffs, Craig-Forth ! 1 
And soon the bulwark of the North, 
Grey Stirling, with her towers and town, 
Upon their fleet career look'd down. 

XIX. 

As up the flinty path they strain'd, 2 

Sudden his steed the leader rein'd ; 

A signal to his squire he flung, 

Who instant to his stirrup sprung : — 

a Seest thou, De Vaux, yon woodsman grey, 

Who town- ward holds the rocky way, 

Of stature tall and poor array ? 

Mark's t thou the firm, yet active stride, 

With which he scales the mountain-side ? 3 

Know'st thou from whence he comes, or whom ?" — 

" No, by my word ; — a burly groom 

He seems, who in the field or chase 

A baron's train would nobly grace." — 

" Out, out, De Vaux ! can fear supply, 

And jealousy, no sharper eye ? 

i [It may be worth noting, that the Poet marks the progress of 
the King by naming in succession places familiar and dear to his 
own early recollections — Blair-Drummond, the seat of the Homes of 
Kaimes ; Kier, that of the principal family of the name of Stirling ; 
Ochtertyre, that of John Ramsay, the well known antiquary, and 
correspondent of Burns ; and Craigforth, that of the Callenders of 
Craigforth, almost under the walls of Stirling Castle ;— all hospit- 
able roofs, under which he had spent many of his younger days.— 
Ed.] 

2 [MS.—" As up the steepy path they strain'd."] 

3 [MS. — " With which he gains the mountain side.""] 



158 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto V, 

Afar, ere to the hill he drew, 

That stately form and step I knew ; 

Like form in Scotland is not seen, 

Treads not such step on Scottish green. 

Tis James of Douglas, by Saint Serle ! l 

The uncle of the banish 'd Earl. 

Away, away, to court, to show 

The near approach of dreaded foe : 

The King must stand upon his guard ; 

Douglas and he must meet prepared." 

Then right-hand wheePd their steeds, and straight 

They won the castle's postern gate. 

XX. 

The Douglas, who had bent his way 
From Cambus-Kenneth's abbey grey, 
Now, as he climb 'd the rocky shelf, 
Held sad communion with himself : — 
" Yes ! all is true my fears could frame ; 
A prisoner lies the noble Graeme, 
And fiery Roderick soon will feel 
The vengeance of the royal steel. 
I, only I, can ward their fate, — 
God grant the ransom come not late ! 
The Abbess hath her promise given, 
My child shall be the bride of Heaven ;— 
— Be pardon 'd one repining tear ! 
For He, who gave her, knows how dear, 



1 [The Edinburgh Reviewer remarks on " that unhappy couplet, 
■where the King himself is in such distress for a rhyme as to he 
obliged to apply to one of the obscurest saints in the calendar." 
The reading of the MS. is — 

" 'Tis James of Douglas, by my word, 

The uncle of the banish'd Lord."] 



Canto V. THE COMBAT. 159 

How excellent ! but that is by, 

And now my business is — to die. 

— Ye towers ! within whose circuit dread 

A Douglas by his sovereign bled ; 

And thou, O sad and fatal mound ! 1 

That oft hast heard the death-axe sound, 

As on the noblest of the land 

Fell the stern headsman's bloody hand, — 

The dungeon, block, and nameless tomb 

Prepare — for Douglas seeks his doom ! 

— But hark ! what blithe and jolly peal 

Makes the Franciscan steeple reel ? 

And see ! upon the crowded street, 

In motley groups what masquers meet ! 

Banner and pageant, pipe and drum, 

And merry morrice-dancers come. 

I guess, by all this quaint array, 

The burghers hold their sports to-day. 2 

James will be there ■, he loves such show, 

Where the good yeoman bends his bow, 

And the tough wrestler foils his foe, 

As well as where, in proud career, 

The high-born tilter shivers spear. 

I'll follow to the Castle-park, 

And play my prize ; — King James shall mark, 

If age has tamed these sinews stark, 

Whose force so oft, in happier days, 

His boyish wonder loved to praise." 

XXI. 

The Castle gates were open flung, 

The quivering drawbridge rock'd and rung, 

i See Appendix, Note 3 L. 
2 See Appendix, Note 3 M. 



160 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto V. 

And echo'd loud the flinty street 

Beneath the coursers' clattering feet, 

As slowly down the steep descent 

Fair Scotland's King and nobles went, 1 

While all along the crowded way 

Was jubilee and loud huzza. 

And ever James was bending low. 

To his white jennet's saddlebow, 

Dofhng his cap to city dame, 

Who smiled and blush'd for pride and shame. 

And well the simperer might be vain,-^ 

He chose the fairest of the train. 

Gravely he greets each city sire, 

Commends each pageant's quaint attire, 

Gives to the dancers thanks aloud, 

And smiles and nods upon the crowd, 

Who rend the heavens with their acclaims, 

u Long live the Commons' King, King James ! " 

Behind the King throng'd peer and knight, 

And noble dame and damsel bright, 

"Whose fiery steeds ill brook 'd the stay 

Of the steep street and crowded way. 

— But in the train you might discern 

Dark lowering brow and visage stern ; 

There nobles mourn'd their pride restrain'd, 2 

And the mean burgher's joys disdain'd ; 



1 [MS.—" King James and all his nobles went . . . 

Ever the King was bending low 

To his white jennet's saddlebow, 

Doffing his cap to burgher dame, 

Who smiling blush' 'd for pride and shame."] 

2 [MS.— " Nobles who mourn'd their power restrain'd, 

And the poor burgher's joys disdain'd ; 
Bark chief, who, hostage for his clan, 
Was from his home a banish'd man, 



Canto V. THE COMBAT. 1 6 1 

And chiefs, who, hostage for their clan, 
Were each from home a banish'd man, 
There thought upon their own grey tower, 
Their waving woods, their feudal power, 
And deem'd themselves a shameful part 
Of pageant which they cursed in heart. 

XXIL 

Now, in the Castle-park, drew out 
Their chequer 'd bands the joyous rout. 
There morrieers, with bell at heel, 
And blade in hand, their mazes wheel \ l 
But chief, beside the butts, there stand 
Bold Robin Hood 2 and all his band, — 
Friar Tuck with quarterstaff and cowl, 
Old Scathelocke with his surly scowl. 
Maid Marion, fair as ivory bone, 
Scarlet, and Mutch, and Little John ; 
Their bugles challenge all that will, 
In archery to prove their skill. 
The Douglas bent a bow of might, 
His first shaft centred in the white, 
And when in turn he shot again, 
His second split the first in twain. 
From the King's hand must Douglas take 
A silver dart, the archer's stake ; 



Who thought upon his own grey tower, 
The waving woods, his feudal bower, 
And deem'd himself a shameful part 
Of pageant that fie cursed in heart."] 
i IThe MS. adds :— 

" With awkward stride there city groom 
Would part of fabled knight assume."] 
2 See Appendix, Note 3 N. 
L 



162 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto V. 

Fondly he watch'd, with watery eye, 1 
Some answering glance of sympathy, 
No kind emotion made reply ! 
Indifferent as to archer wight, 
The monarch gave the arrow bright. 2 

XXIII. 

Now, clear the ring ! for, hand to hand, 
The manly wrestlers take their stand. 
Two o'er the rest superior rose, 
And proud demanded mightier foes, 
Nor call'd in vain ; for Douglas came. 
—For life is Hugh of Larbert lame ; 
Scarce better John of Alloa's fare, 
Whom senseless home his comrades bear. 
Prize of the wrestling match, the King 
To Douglas gave a golden ring. 3 
While coldly glanced his eye of blue, 
As frozen drop of wintry dew. 
Douglas would speak, but in his breast 
His struggling soul his words suppress'd ; 
Indignant then he turn'd him where 
Their arms the brawny yeomen bare, 
To hurl the massive bar in air. 
When each his utmost strength had shown, 
The Douglas rent an earth-fast stone 



1 [MS.— "Fondly he watch' d, with watery eye, 
For answering glance of sympathy, — 
But no emotion made reply ! 
Indifferent as to unknown ( ^g^* 
Cold as to unknown yeoman X ' 

The King gave forth the arrow bright."] 

2 See Appendix, Note 3 O. 

3 See Appendix, Note 3 P. 



Canto V. THE COMBAT. 163 

From its deep bed, then heaved it high, 
And sent the fragment through the sky, 
A rood beyond the farthest mark ; 
And still in Stirling's royal park, 
The grey-hair'd sires, who know the past, 
To strangers point the Douglas-cast, 
And moralize on the decay 
Of Scottish strength in modern day. 1 

XXIV. 

The vale with loud applauses rang, 
The Ladies' Rock sent back the clang. 
The King, with look unmoved, bestow'd 
A purse well filled with pieces broad. 2 
Indignant smiled the Douglas proud, 
And threw the gold among the crowd, 3 
Who now, with anxious wonder, scan, 
And sharper glance, the dark grey man ; 
Till whispers rose among the throng, 
That heart so free, and hand so strong, 
Must to the Douglas blood belong ; 
The old men mark'd and shook the head, 
To see his hair with silver spread, 
And wink'd aside, and told each son, 
Of feats upon the English done, 
Ere Douglas of the stalwart hand 4 
Was exiled from his native land. 
The women prais'd his stately form, 
Though wreck'd by many a winter's storm ; 5 



1 [MS. — " Of mortal strength in modern day."] 

2 [MS. — " A purse weigh' d down •with pieces broad."] 

3 [MS. — " Scattered the gold among the crowd."] 

4 [MS. " Ere James of Douglas' stalwart hand. '] 

5 [MS. — " Though worn by many a winter storm."] 



164 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto V. 

The youth with awe and wonder saw 
His strength surpassing Nature's law. 
Thus judged, as is their wont, the crowd, 
Till murmur rose to clamours loud. 
But not a glance from that proud ring 
Of peers who circled round the King, 
With Douglas held communion kind. 
Or calPd the banish'd man to mind ; x 
No, not from those who, at the chase, 
Once held his side the honour'd place, 
Begirt his board, and, in the field, 
Found safety underneath his shield ; 
For he, v/hom royal eyes disown, 
When was his form to courtiers known ! 

XXV. 

The Monarch saw the gambols flag, 

And bade let loose a gallant stag, 

Whose pride, the holiday to crown, 

Two favourite greyhounds should pull down, 

That venison free, and Bourdeaux wine, 

Might serve the archery to dine. 

But Lufra, — whom from Douglas' side 

Nor bribe nor threat could e'er divide, 

The fleetest hound in all the North, 

Brave Lufra saw, and darted forth. 
She left the royal hounds mid-way, 
And dashing on the antler'd prey, 
Sunk her sharp muzzle in his flank, 
And deep the flowing life-blood drank. 
The Bang's stout huntsman saw the sport 
By strange intruder broken short, 

4 [MS.— " Or called his stately form to mind."] 



Gamfo I . the :omeat. 

Came ap, and, with Ms leash unbound. 
In anger struck the noble hound. 
— The Douglas had endured, that morn, 
The King's cold look, the nobles' s: :::.. 
And last, and worst to spirit proud, 
Had borne the pity of the crowd ; 
But Lnfta had been fondly bred, 
To share his board, :: 

Am* I'll ~* '...-!.. IL..r'.":. .LUTTa 5 neC£, 

Thev ~ere such mamnates. that with name 
Of Lmra. Eilen's image came. 

In darkemi brow and flashing eve ■ 

As waves before the bark divide! 
The :rowd 2: m m before his stride : 
Xeeis ■.:. = mffe: mi no more. 
Toe m :m lies senseless in his gore. 

Such \ : .i:~ ieal, 

Though gaumietei in glove of steel, 

XXVI. 

Then clamour'd loud the roval train. 1 

And bmmiim i sw ris and staves amain, 
But s:em the Baron's warning— » Back !"* 

Beware the Douglas^- Yes! behold, 

King James ! Tne Douglas, m :m'c ;: ;hi 
And vainly sought for near and far, 
A victim to atone the war. 



: [MS.— ■'■' Ciancoufi his comrades of the tram."" 
- >t?. — •'•' But «::- :he warrior's waning—-' Eack 



166 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto V, 

A willing victim now attends, 

Nor craves thy grace but for his friends." — 

64 Thus is my clemency repaid ? 

Presumptuous Lord I" the Monarch said; 

" Of thy mis-proud ambitious clan, 

Thou, James of Bothwell, wert the man, 

The only man, in whom a foe 

My woman-mercy would not know : 

But shall a Monarch's presence brook 1 

Injurious blow, and haughty look ? — 

What ho ! the Captain of our Guard ! 

Give the offender fitting ward 

Break off the sports !" — for tumult rose, 
And yeomen 'gan to bend their bows, — 
"Break off the sports !" he said, and frown'd, 
" And bid our horsemen clear the ground." 

XXVII. 

Then uproar wild and misarray 
Marr'd the fair form of festal day. 
The horsemen prick'd among the crowd, 
RepelPd by threats and insult loud ; 2 
To earth are borne the old and weak, 
The timorous fly, the women shriek ; 
With flint, with shaft, with staff, with bar, 
The hardier urge tumultuous war. 
At once round Douglas darkly sweep 
The royal spears in circle deep, 
And slowly scale the pathway steep ; 

1 [MS. — " But in my court, injurious "blow, 

And bearded thus, and thus out-dared ? 
What ho ! the Captain of our Guard !"] 

2 [MS.—" Their threats repell'd by insult loud. "J 



Canto V. THE COMBAT, 167 

While on the rear in thunder pour 
The rabble with disorder'd roar. 
With grief the noble Douglas saw 
The Commons rise against the law, 
And to the leading soldier said, — 
" Sir John of Hyndford ! 'twas my blade, 
That knighthood on thy shoulder laid ; 
For that good deed, permit me then 
A word with these misguided men. 

XXVIII. 

41 Here, gentle friends ! ere yet for me, 

Ye break the bands of fealty. 

My life, my honour, and my cause, 

I tender free to Scotland's laws. 

Are these so weak as must require 

The aid of your misguided ire ? 

Or, if I suffer causeless wrong, 

Is then my selfish rage so strong, 

My sense of public weal so low, 

That, for mean vengeance on a foe, 

Those cords of love I should unbind, 

Which knit my country and my kind ? 

Oh no ! Believe, in yonder tower 

It will not soothe my captive hour, 

To know those spears our foes should dread, 

For me in kindred gore are red ; 

To know, in fruitless brawl begun, 

For me, that mother wails her son ; 

For me, that widow's mate expires ; 

For me, that orphans weep their sires ; 

That patriots mourn insulted laws, 

And curse the Douglas for the cause. 



168 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto V. 

O let your patience ward such ill, 
And keep your right to love me still ! " 

XXIX. 

The crowd's wild fury sunk again l 
In tears, as tempests melt in rain. 
With lifted hands and eyes, they pray'd 
For blessings on his generous head, 
Who for his country felt alone, 
And prized her blood beyond his own. 
Old men, upon the verge of life, 
Bless'd him who stay'd the civil strife ; 
And mothers held their babes on high, 
The self-devoted Chief to spy, 
Triumphant over wrongs and ire, 
To whom the prattlers owed a sire : 
Even the rough soldier's heart was moved ; 
As if behind some bier beloved, 
With trailing arms and drooping head, 
The Douglas up the hill he led, 
And at the Castle's battled verge, 
With sighs resign'd his honour'd charge. 

XXX. 

The offended Monarch rode apart, 
With bitter thought and swelling heart, 
And would not now vouchsafe again 
Through Stiriing streets to lead his train. 
" O Lennox, who would wish to rule 
This changeling crowd, this common fool ? 



1 [MS. — " The crowd's wild fury eVb'd amain 
In tears, as tempests sink in rain."] 



Canto V. the combat. 169 

* Hear'st thou," he said, " the loud acclaim, 
With which they shout the Douglas name ? 
With like acclaim, the vulgar throat 
Strain'd for King James their morning note ; 
With like acclaim they hail'd the day, 
When first I broke the Douglas' sway ; 
And like acclaim would Douglas greet, 
If he could hurl me from my seat. 
Who o'er the herd would wish to reign, 
Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain ! 
Vain as the leaf upon the stream, 1 
And fickle as a changeful dream ; 
Fantastic as a woman's mood, 
And fierce as Frenzy's fever'd blood. 
Thou many-headed monster- thing, 2 

who would wish to be thy king ! — 

XXXI. 

u But soft ! what messenger of speed 
Spurs hitherward his panting steed ? 

1 guess his cognizance afar — 

What from our cousin, John of Mar ?" — 

" He prays, my liege, your sports keep bound 

Within the safe and guarded ground : 



l [MS.—" Vain as the sick man's idle dream.*'] 
8 ( _„ . — "Who deserves greatness, 

Deserves your hate ; and your affections are 
A sick man's appetite, who desires most that 
Which would increase his evil. He that depends 
Upon your favours, swims with fins of lead, 
And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye ! Trust ye ? 
With every minute you do change a mind ; 
And call him noble, that was now your hate, 
Him vile that was your garland." 

Coriolanus, Act I. Scene 10 



170 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Catlto V, 

For some foul purpose yet unknown,— 
Most sure for evil to the throne, — 
The outlaw'd Chieftain, Roderick Dhu, 
Has summon'd his rebellious crew ; 
Tis said, in James of Bothwell's aid 
These loose banditti stand array'd. 
The Earl of Mar, this morn, from Doune, 
To break their muster march'd, and soon 
Your grace will hear of battle fought ; 
But earnestly the Earl besought, 
Till from such danger he provide, 
With scanty train you will not ride.'* 1 

XXXII. 

" Thou wam'st me I have done amiss, — 
I should have earlier look'd to this : 
I lost it in this bustling day. 
— Retrace with speed thy former way, 
Spare not for spoiling of thy steed, 
The best of mine shall be thy meed. 
Say to our faithful Lord of Mar, 
We do forbid the intended war : 
Roderick, this morn, in single fight* 
Was made our prisoner by a knight ; 
And Douglas hath himself arid cause 
Submitted to our kingdom's laws. 
The tidings of their leaders lost 
Will soon dissolve the mountain host, 
Nor would we that the vulgar feel, 
For their Chief's crimes, avenging steel. 
Bear Mar our message, Braco •, fly !" — 
He turn'd his steed, — " My liege, I hie, — 

i [MS.—" On distant chase yon will not rid«."J 



Canto V. THE COMBAT. 171 

Yet, ere I cross this lily lawn, 
I fear the broadswords will be drawn.''' 
The turf the flying courser spurn'd. 
And to his towers the King return'd. 

XXXIII. 

Ill with King James's mood that day, 
Suited gay feast and minstrel lay ; 
Soon were dismiss'd the courtly throng, 
And soon cut short the festal song. 
Nor less upon the sadden 'd town 
The evening sunk in sorrow down, 
The burghers spoke of civil jar, 
Of rumour'd feuds and mountain war, 
Of Moray, Mar, and Roderick Dhu, 
All up in arms : — the Douglas too, 
They mourn'd him pent within the hold, 
tt Where stout Earl William was of old." 1 
And there his word the speaker staid, 
And finger on his lip he laid, 
Or pointed to his dagger blade. 
But jaded horsemen, from the west, 
At evening to the Castle press'd ; 
And busy talkers said they bore 
Tidings of fight on Katrine's shore ; 
At noon the deadly fray begun, 
And lasted till the set of sun. 
Thus giddy rumour shook the town, 
Till closed the Night her pennons brown, 

i Stabbed by James II. in Stirling Castle. 



[ H3 ] 



LADY OF THE LAKE. 
CANTO SIXTH. 



I. 

The sun, awakening, through the smoky air 

Of the dark city casts a sullen glance, 
Rousing each caitiff to his task of care, 

Of sinful man the sad inheritance ; 
Summoning revellers from the lagging dance, 

Scaring the prowling robber to his den ; 
Gilding on battled tower the warder's lance, 

And warning student pale to leave his pen, 
And yield his drowsy eyes to the kind nurse of men. 

"What various scenes, and, O ! what scenes of woe, 
Are withess'd by that red and struggling beam ! 

The fever'd patient, from his pallet low, 

Through crowded hospital beholds its stream ; 



174 THE LADY OP THE LAKE. Canto VI . 

The ruin'd maiden trembles at its gleam, 

The debtor wakes to thought of gyve and jail, 

The love-lorn wretch starts from tormenting dream ; 
The wakeful mother, by the glimmering pale, 

Trims her sick infant's couch, and soothes his feeble 
wail. 

II. 

At dawn the towers of Stirling rang 

With soldier-step and weapon-clang, 

While drums, with rolling note, foretell 

Relief to weary sentinel. 

Through narrow loop and casement barr'd, 1 

The sunbeams sought the Court of Guard, 

And, struggling with the smoky air, 

Deaden 'd the torches' yellow glare. 

In comfortless alliance shone 2 

The lights through arch of blacken'd stone, 

And show'd wild shapes in garb of war, 

Faces deform'd with beard and scar, 

All haggard from the midnight watch, 

And fever'd with the stern debauch ; 

For the oak table's massive board, 

Flooded with wine, with fragments stored, 

And beakers drain'd, and cups o'erthrown, 

Show'd in what sport the night had flown. 

Some, weary, snored on floor and bench ; 

Some labour'd still their thirst to quench ; 

Some, chill'd with watching, spread their hands 

O'er the huge chimney's dying brands, 



i [MS.-—" Through blacken'd arch and casement barr'd."] 
2 [MS. — " The lights in strange alliance shone 
Beneath the arch of blacken'd stone."] 



Canto VI. THE GUARD- ROOM. 175 

While round them, or beside them flung, 
At every step their harness rung. 

III. 

These drew not for their fields the sword, 

Like tenants of a feudal lord, 

Nor own'd the patriarchal claim 

Of Chieftain in their leader's name ; 

Adventurers they, from far who roved, 

To live by battle which they loved. 1 

There the Italian's clouded face, 

The swarthy Spaniard's there you trace ; 

The mountain-loving Switzer there 

More freely breath'd in mountain-air ; 

The Fleming there despised the soil, 

That paid so ill the labourer's toil ; 

Their rolls show'd French and German name ; 

And merry England's exiles came, 

To share, with ill-conceal'd disdain, 

Of Scotland's pay the scanty gain. 

All brave in arms, well train'd to wield 

The heavy halberd, brand, and shield ; 

In camps licentious, wild, and bold ; 

In pillage fierce and uncontroll'd ; 

And now, by holytide and feast, 

From rules of discipline released. 

IV. 

They held debate of bloody fray, 
Fought 'twixt Loch Katrine and Achray. 
Fierce was their speech, and, 'mid their words, 
Their hands oft grappled to their swords ; 

i See Appendix, Note 3 Q. 



176 THE LADY OP THE LAKE. Canto VI. 

Nor sunk their tone to spare the ear 

Of wounded comrades groaning near, 

Whose mangled limbs, and bodies gored, 

Bore token of the mountain sword, 

Though, neighbouring to the Court of Guard, 

Their prayers and feverish wails were heard ; 

Sad burden to the ruffian joke, 

And savage oath by fury spoke ! — 1 

At length up-started John of Brent, 

A yeoman from the banks of Trent ; 

A stranger to respect or fear, 

In peace a chaser of the deer, 

In host a hardy mutineer, 

But still the boldest of the crew, 

When deed of danger was to do. 

He grieved, that day, their games cut short, 

And marr'd the dicer's brawling sport, 

And shouted loud, " Renew the bowl ! 

And, while a merry catch I troll, 

Let each the buxom chorus bear, 

Like brethren of the brand and spear." 



V. 
&aTtsitx'3 §>aixQ. 

Our vicar still preaches that Peter and Poule 

Laid a swinging long curse on the bonny brown bowl, 

That there's wrath and despair in the jolly black-jack, 

And the seven deadly sins in a flagon of sack ; 

Yet whoop, Barnaby ! off with thy liquor, 

Drink upsees 2 out, and a fig for the vicar ! 



i [MS.- ,( Sad burden to the ruffian jest, 

And rude oaths vented by the rest."] 
2 Bacchanalian interjection, borrowed from the Dutch. 



I 



Canto VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 177 

Our vicar he calls it damnation to sip 
The ripe ruddy dew of a woman's dear lip, 
Says, that Beelzebub lurks in her kerchief so sly, 
And Apollyon shoots darts from her merry black eye ; 
Yet whoop, Jack ! kiss Gillian the quicker, 
Till she bloom like a rose, and a fig for the vicar ! 

Our vicar thus preaches — and why should he not ? 
For the dues of his cure are the placket and pot ; 
And 'tis right of his office poor laymen to lurch, 
Who infringe the domains of our good Mother Church. 
Yet whoop, bully-boys ! off with your liquor, 
Sweet Marjorie's the word, and a fig for the vicar ! 

VI. 

The warder's challenge, heard without, 

Staid in mid-roar the merry shout. 

A soldier to the portal went, — 

" Here is old Bertram, sirs, of Ghent ; 

And, — beat for jubilee the drum ! 

A maid and minstrel with him come." 

Bertram, a Fleming, grey and scarr'd, 

Was entering now the Court of Guard. 

A harper with him, and in plaid 

All muffled close, a mountain maid, 

Who backward shrunk to 'scape the view 

Of the loose scene and boisterous crew. 

" What news ?" they roar'd : — " I only know, 

From noon till eve we fought with foe, 

As wild and as untameable 

As the rude mountains where they dwell ; 

On both sides store of blood is lost, 

Nor much success can either boast." — 

" But whence thy captives, friend ? such spoil 



173 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto VI. 

As theirs must needs reward thy toil. 1 
Old dost thou wax, and wars grow sharp ; 
Thou now hast glee-maiden and harp ! 
Get thee an ape, and trudge the land, 
The leader of a juggler band." 2 

VII. 

u No, comrade ; no such fortune mine. 
After the fight these sought our line, 
That aged harper and the girl, 
And, having audience of the Earl, 
Mar bade I should purvey them steed, 
And bring them hitherward with speed. 
Forbear your mirth and rude alarm, 
For none shall do them shame or harm." 
" Hear ye his boast ?" cried John of Brent, 
Ever to strife and jangling bent ; 
" Shall he strike doe beside our lodge, 
And yet the jealous niggard grudge 
To pay the forester his fee ? 
I'll have my share howe'er it be, 
Despite of Moray, Mar, or thee." 
Bertram his forward step withstood ; 3 
And, burning in his vengeful mood, 
Old Allan, though unfit for strife, 
Laid hand upon his dagger-knife ; 



i [The MS. reads after this :— 

" Get thee an ape, and then at once 
Thou mayst renounce the warder's lance, 
And trudge through borough and through land, 
The leader of a juggler band."] 

2 See Appendix, Note 3 R. 

3 [MS — " Bertram { hl ? \ violence withstood."] 






CantQ VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 179 

But Ellen boldly stepp'd between, 
And dropp'd at once the tartan screen : 
So, from his morning cloud, appears 
The sun of May, through summer tears. 
The savage soldiery, amazed, 1 
As on descended angel gazed ; 
Even hardy Brent, abash'd and tamed, 
Stood half admiring, half ashamed. 

VIII. 

Boldly she spoke, — " Soldiers, attend ; 

My father was the soldier's friend ; 

Cheer 'd him in camps, in marches led, 

And with him in the battle bled. 

Not from the valiant, or the strong, 

Should exile's daughter suffer wrong." 2 

Answer'd De Brent, most forward still 

In every feat or good or ill, 

" I shame me of the part I play'd : 

And thou an outlaw's child, poor maid ! 

An outlaw I by forest laws, 

And merry Needwood knows the cause. 

Poor Rose, — if Rose be living now,'* 3 

He wiped his iron eye and brow, 

" Must bear such age, I think, as thou. 

Hear ye, my mates ;— I go to call 

The Captain of our watch to hall : 

There lies my halbert on the floor ; 

And he that steps my halbert o'er, 

To do the maid injurious part, 

My shaft shall quiver in his heart !— - 

1 [MS. — " While the rude soldiery, amazed."] 

2 [MS. — " Should Ellen Douglas suffer wrong."] 

3 [MS. — " ' My Rose,' — he wiped his iron eye and brow, — 

'Poor Rose, — if Rose be living now.' "] 



180 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto VI. 

Beware loose speech, or jesting rough : 
Ye all know John de Brent. Enough. " 

IX. 

Their Captain came, a gallant young, — 

(Of Tullibardine's house he sprung,) 

Nor wore he yet the spurs of knight ; 

Gay was his mien, his humour light, 

And, though by courtesy controll'd, 

Forward his speech, his bearing bold. 

The high-born maiden, ill could brook 

The scanning of his curious look 

And dauntless eye ; — and yet, in sooth, 

Young Lewis was a generous youth ; 

But Ellen's lovely face and mien, 

111 suited to the garb and scene, 

Might lightly bear construction strange, 

And give loose fancy scope to range. 

" Welcome to Stirling towers, fair maid ! 

Come ye to seek a champion's aid, 

On palfrey white, with harper hoar, 

Like errant damosel of yore ? 

Does thy high quest a knight require, 

Or may the venture suit a squire ? " — 

Her dark eye flash'd ; — she paused and sigh'd,— . 

" O what have I to do with pride ! — 

— Through scenes of sorrow, shame, and strife, 

A suppliant for a father's life, 

I crave an audience of the King. 

Behold, to back my suit, a ring, 

The royal pledge of grateful claims, 

Given by the Monarch to Fitz- James." 1 

1 [MS.— " The Monarch gave to James Fitz-James."] 



Canto VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 181 

X. 

The signet-ring young Lewis took, 

With deep respect and alter'd look ; 

And said, — " This ring our duties own ; 

And pardon, if to worth unknown, 

In semblance mean obscurely veil'd, 

Lady, in aught my folly fail'd. 

Soon as the day flings wide his gates, 

The King shall know what suitor waits. 

Please you, meanwhile, in fitting bower 

Repose you till his waking hour ; 

Female attendance shall obey 

Your hest, for service or array. 

Permit I marshal you the way." 

But, ere she follow'd, with the grace 

And open bounty of her race, 

She bade her slender purse be shared 

Among the soldiers of the guard. 

The rest with thanks their guerdon took \ 

But Brent, with shy and awkward look, 

On the reluctant maiden's hold 

Forced bluntly back the proffer'd gold ; 

" Forgive a haughty English heart, 

And O forget its ruder part ! 

The vacant purse shall be my share, 1 

Which in my barret-cap I'll bear 

Perchance in jeopardy of war, 

Where gayer crest3 may keep afar." 

With thanks, — 'twas all she could, — the maid 

His rugged courtesy repaid. 



[MS. — " The silken purse shall serve for me, 
And in my barret-cap shall flee."] 



J 82 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto VI. 

XI. 

When Ellen forth with Lewis went, 
Allan made suit to John of Brent : — 
" My lady safe, let your grace 
Give me to see my master's face ! 
His minstrel I, — to share his doom 
Bound from the cradle to the tomb. 
Tenth in descent, since first my sires 
Waked for his noble house their lyres, 
Nor one of all the race was known 
But prized its weal above their own. 
With the Chief's birth begins our care \ 
Our harp must soothe the infant heir, 
Teach the youth tales of fight, and grace 
His earliest feat of field or chase ; 
In peace, in war, our rank we keep, 
We cheer his board, we soothe his sleep, 
Nor leave him till we pour our verse, — 
A doleful tribute ! — o'er his hearse. 
Then let me share his captive lot ; 
It is my right — deny it not !" — 
" Little we reck," said John of Brent, 
a We southern men, of long descent ; 
Nor wot we how a name — a word — 
Makes clansmen vassals to a lord : 
Yet kind my noble landlord's part.— 
God bless the house of Beaudesert ! 
And, but I loved to drive the deer, 
More than to guide the labouring steer, 
I had not dwelt an outcast here. 
Come, good old Minstrel, follow me ; 
Thy Lord and Chieftain shalt thou see." 



Canto VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 183 

XII. 

Then, from a rusted iron hook, 

A bunch of ponderous keys he took, 

Lighted a torch, and Allan led 

Through grated arch and passage dread. 

Portals they pass'd, where, deep within, 

Spoke prisoner's moan, and fetters' din ; 

Through rugged vaults, 1 where, loosely stored, 

Lay wheel, and axe, and headsman's sword, 

And many an hideous engine grim, 

For wrenching joint, and crushing 2 limb, 

By artist form'd, who deem'd it shame 

And sin to give their work a name. 

They halted at a low-brow'd porch, 

And Brent to Allan gave the torch, 

While bolt and chain he backward roll'd, 

And made the bar unhasp its hold, 

They enter'd : — 'twas a prison-room 

Of stern security and gloom, 

Yet not a dungeon ; for the day 

Through lofty gratings found its way, 

And rude and antique garniture 

Deck'd the sad walls and oaken floor ; 3 

Such as the rugged days of old 

Deem'd fit for captive noble's hold. 

w Here," said De Brent, " thou mayst remain 4 

Till the Leech visit him again. 



i [MS.—" Low broad vaults. "] 

2 [MS.—" Stretching."] 

3 [MS.—" Flinty floor."] 

* [MS, ... ■ " Thou mayst remain 

And then, retiring, bolt and chain, 
And rusty bar, he drew again. 
Roused at the sound," &c.] 



184 THE LADY OP THE LAKE. Canto VI. 

Strict is his charge, the warders tell, 

To tend the noble prisoner well.'" 

Retiring then the bolt he drew, 

And the lock's murmurs growl'd anew. 

Roused at the sound, from lowly bed 

A captive feebly raised his head ; 

The wondering Minstrel look'd, and knew — 

Not his dear lord, but Roderick Dhu ! 

For, come from where Clan- Alpine fought, 

They, erring, deem'd the Chief he sought. 

XIII. 

As the tall ship, whose lofty prore 
Shall never stem the billows more, 
Deserted by her gallant band, 
Amid the breakers lies astrand, — 
So, on his couch, lay Roderick Dhu ! 
And oft his fever'd limbs he threw 
In toss abrupt, as when her sides 
Lie rocking in the advancing tides, 
That shake her frame with ceaseless beat, 
Yet cannot heave her from her seat ; — 
O ! how unlike her course at sea ! l 
Or his free step on hill and lea ! — 
Soon as the Minstrel he could scan, 
— ." What of thy lady ?— of my clan ? 
My mother ? — Douglas ? — tell me all ? 
Have they been ruin'd in my fall ? 
Ah, yes ! or wherefore art thou here ! 
Yet speak, — speak boldly, — do not fear.' 1 — 
(For Allan, who his mood well knew, 
Was choked with grief and terror too.) — 

J [MS. — " O ! how unlike her course on main ! 
Or his free step on hill and plain !"] 



Catdo VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 1 85 

" Who fought — who fled ? — Old man, be brief; — 

Some might — for they had lost their Chief. 

Who basely live ? — who bravely died ? " — 

" O, calm thee, Chief ! " the Minstrel cried, 

" Ellen is safe ;"— . " For that thank Heaven ! "_- 

" And hopes are for the Douglas given ; — 

The Lady Margaret too is well, 

And, for thy clan, — on field or fell, 

Has never harp of minstrel told, 1 

Of combat fought so true and bold. 

Thy stately Pine is yet unbent, 

Though many a goodly bough is rent." 

XIV. 

The Chieftain reared his form on high, 

And fever's fire was in his eye ; 

But ghastly, pale, and livid streaks 

Chequer 'd his swarthy brow and cheeks. 

— " Hark, Minstrel ! I have heard thee play, 

With measure bold, on festal day, 

In yon lone isle, . . . again where ne'er 

Shall harper play, or warrior hear ! . . . 

That stirring air that peals on high, 

O'er Derm id's race our victory. — 

Strike it ! 2 — and then, (for well thou canst,) 

Free from thy minstrel-spirit glanced, 

Fling me the picture of the fight, 

When met my clan the Saxon might. 

I'll listen, till my fancy hears 

The clang of swords, the crash of spears ! 



i [MS.— " Shall never harp of minstrel tell, 

Of combat fought so fierce and well."] 
2 See Appendix, Note 3 S. 



186 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto VI. 

These grates, these walls, shall vanish then, 

For the fair field of fighting men, 

And my free spirit burst away, 

As if it soar'd from battle-fray." 

The trembling Bard with awe obey'd, — 

Slow on the harp his hand he laid ; 

But soon remembrance of the sight 

He witness'd from the mountain's height, 

With what old Bertram told at night, 1 

Awaken'd the full power of song, 

And bore him in career along ; — 

As shallop launch'd on river's tide, 

That slow and fearful leaves the side, 

But, when it feels the middle stream, 

Drives downward swift as lightning's beam. 

XV. 

3Sattl* at %zkV an Bum*. 2 

" The Minstrel came once more to view 
The eastern ridge of Benvenue, 
For, ere he parted, he would say 
Farewell to lovely Loch Achray— 
Where shall he find, in foreign land, 
So lone a lake, so sweet a strand ! 
There is no breeze upon the fern, 

No ripple on the lake, 
Upon her eyry nods the erne, 

The deer has sought the brake ; 
The small birds will not sing aloud, 

The springing trout lies still, 
So darkly glooms yon thunder-cloud, 
That swathes, as with a purple shroud, 

i [The MS. has not this line.] 
2 See Appendix, Note 3 T. 



Cardo VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 137 

Benledi's distant hill. 
Is it the thunder's solemn sound 
That mutters deep and dread, 
Or echoes from the groaning ground 

The warrior's measured tread ? 
Is it the lightning's quivering glance 

That on the thicket streams, 
Or do they flash on spear and lance 
The sun's retiring beams ? 
— I see the dagger-crest of Mar, 
I see the Moray's silver star, 
Wave o'er the cloud of Saxon war, 
That up the lake comes winding far ! 
To hero bound for battle-strife, 

Or bard of martial lay, 
Twere worth ten years of peaceful life, 
One glance at their array ! 

XVI. 

" Their lighkarm'd archers far and near 
* Survey 'd the tangled ground, 
Their centre ranks, with pike and spear, 

A twilight forest frown'd, 
Their barbed horsemen, in the rear, 

The stern battalia crown'd. 
No cymbal clash'd, no clarion rang, 

Still were the pipe and drum ; 
Save heavy tread, and armour's clang, 
♦ The sullen march was dumb. 
There breathed no wind their crests to shake, 

Or wave their flags abroad ; 
Scarce the frail aspen seem'd to quake, 

That shadow'd o'er their road. 



188 THE LADY OF THE LrlKE. Cdtlto VI. 

Their vanward scouts no tidings bring, 

Can rouse no lurking foe, 
Nor spy a trace of living thing, 

Save when they stirred the roe ; 
The host moves, like a deep-sea wave, 
Where rise no rocks its pride to brave, 

High-swelling, dark, and slow. 
The lake is pass'd, and now they gain 
A narrow and a broken plain, 
Before the Trosach's rugged jaws ; 
And here the hor3e and spearmen pause. 
While, to explore the dangerous glen, 
Dive through the pass the archer-men. 






XVII. 

" At once there rose so wild a yell 

Within that dark and narrow dell, 

As all the fiends, from heaven that fell, 

Had peal'd the banner-cry of hell ! 
Forth from the pass in tumult driven, 
Like chaff before the wind of heaven, 

The archery appear : 
For life ! for life ! their plight they ply — 
And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry, 
And plaids and bonnets waving high, 
And broadswords flashing to the sky, 

Are maddening in the rear. 
Onward they drive, in dreadful race, 
Pursuers and pursued ; 
Before that tide of flight and chase, 
How shall it keep its rooted place, 

The spearmen's twilight wood ? — 
' Down, down,' cried Mar, * your lances down ! 






Canto VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 1 89 

Bear back both friend and foe ! ' 
Like reeds before the tempest's frown, 
That serried grove of lances brown 

At once lay levell'd low ; 
And closely shouldering side to sido, 
The bristling ranks the onset bide. 1 
4 We'll quell the savage mountaineer, 

As their Tinchel 2 cows the game ! 
They come as fleet as forest deer, 

We'll drive them back as tame.' 

XVIII. 

" Bearing before them, in their course, 

The relics of the archer force, 

Like wave with crest of sparkling foam, 

Right onward did Clan- Alpine come. 
Above the tide, each broadsword bright 
Was brandishing like beam of light, 

Each targe was dark below ; 
And with the ocean's mighty swing, 
When heaving to the tempest's wing, 
They hurl'd them on the foe. 

I heard the lance's shivering crash, 

As when the whirlwind rends the ash ; 

I heard the broadsword's deadly clang, 

As if an hundred anvils rang ! 

But Moray wheel'd his rearward rank 

Of horsemen on Clan- Alpine's flank, 
. — ' My banner-man advance ! 
I see,' he cried, ' their column shake 

l [The MS. has not this couplet.] 
2 A circle of sportsmen, who, by surrounding a great space, and 
gradually narrowing, brought immense quantities of deer together, 
which usually made desperate efforts to break through the Tinchel, 



190 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto VI. 

Now, gallants ! for your ladies' sake, 

Upon them with the lance !' — 
The horsemen dash'd among the rout, 
As deer break through the broom ; 
Their steeds are stout, their swords are out, 

They soon make lightsome room. 
Clan- Alpine's best are backward borne — 

Where, where was Roderick then ! 
One blast upon his bugle-horn 

Were worth a thousand men. 
And refluent through the pass of fear l 

The battle's tide was pour'd ; 
Vanish 'd the Saxon's struggling spear, 

Vanish'd the mountain sword. 
As Bracklinn's chasm, so black and steep, 

Receives her roaring linn, 
As the dark caverns of the deep 
Suck the wild whirlpool in, 
So did the deep and darksome pass 
Devour the battle's mingled mass : 
None linger now upon the plain, 
Save those who ne'er shall fight again. 

XIX. 

" Now westward rolls the battle's din, 
That deep and doubling pass within. 
— Minstrel, away ! the work of fate 2 
Is bearing on : its issue wait, 



1 [MS.—" And refluent down the darksome pass 

The battle's tide was pour'd ; 
There toil'd the spearman's struggling spear, 
There raged the mountain sword."] 

2 [MS.—" Away ! away ! the work of fate !"] 



Canto VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 10 1 

Where the rude Trosach's dread defile 
Opens on Katrine's lake and isle — 
Grey Benvenue I soon repass'd, 
Loch Katrine lay beneath me cast. 

The sun is set ; — the clouds are met, 
The lowering scowl of heaven 

An inky hue of livid blue 
To the deep lake has given ; 
Strange gusts of wind from mountain glen 
Swept o'er the lake, then sunk agen. 
I heeded not the eddying surge, 
Mrae eye but saw the Trosach's gorge, 
Mine ear but heard the sullen sound, 
Which like an earthquake shook the ground, 
And spoke the stern and desperate strife 
That parts not but with parting life, 1 
Seeming, to minstrel-ear, to toll 2 
The dirge of many a passing soul. 

Nearer it comes — the dim-wood glen 

The martial flood disgorged agen, 
But not in mingled tide ; 

The plaided warriors of the North 

High on the mountain thunder forth 
And overhang its side ; 

While by the lake below appears 

The dark'ning cloud of Saxon spears. 3 

At weary bay each shatter'd band, 

Eyeing their foemen, sternly stand ! 

1 [— — " the loveliness in death 

That parts not quite with parting breath. " 

Byron's Giaour.] 

2 [MS. — " And seem'd, to minstrel ear, to toll 

The parting dirge of many a soul."] 

3 [MS. — " While by the darken d lake below, 

File out the spearmen of the foe."] 



] 92 THE L^DY OF THE LAKE. Canto VI, 

Their banners stream like tatter'd sail, 
That flings its fragments to the gale, 
And broken arms and disarray 
Mark 'd the fell havoc of the day. 

XX. 

M Viewing the mountain's ridge askance, 
The Saxon stood in sullen trance, 
Till*Moray pointed with his lance, 

And cried — 6 Behold yon isle ! — 
See ! none are left to guard its strand, 
But women weak, that wring the hand : 
Tis there of yore the robber band 

Their booty wont to pile ; — 
My purse, with bonnet-pieces store, 
To him will swim a bow-shot o'er, 
And loose a shallop from the shore. 
Lightly we'll tame the war-wolf then, 
Lords of his mate, and brood, and den. 
Forth from the ranks a spearman sprung, 
On earth his casque and corslet rung, 

He plunged him in the wave ; — 
All saw the deed — the purpose knew, 
And to their clamours Benvenue 

A mingled echo gave ; 
The Saxons shout, their mate to cheer, 
The helpless females scream for fear, 
And yells for rage the mountaineer. 
Twas then, as by the outcry riven, 
Pour'd down at once the lowering heaven ; 
A whirlwind swept Loch Katrine's breast, 
Her billows rear'd their snowy crest. 
Well for the swimmer swell'd they high, 
To mar the Highland marksman's eye ; 






Canto VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 193 

For round him shower'd, 'mid rain and hail, 
The vengeful arrows of the Gael. — 

In vain He nears the isle — and lo ! 

His hand is on a shallop's bow. 

—Just then a flash of lightning came, 

It tinged the waves and strand with flame ; — 1 

I mark'd Duncraggan's widow'd dame. 

Behind an oak I saw her stand, 

A naked dirk gleam'd in her hand : — 

It darken'd,-~-but amid the moan 

Of waves I heard a dying groan ; — 

Another flash ! — the spearman floats 

A weltering corse beside the boats, 

And the stern Matron o'er him stood, 

Her hand and dagger streaming blood. 

XXI. 

" < Revenge ! revenge ! ' the Saxons cried, 
The Gaels' exulting shout replied. 
Despite the elemental rage, 
Again they hurried to engage ; 
But, ere they closed in desperate fight, 
Bloody with spurring came a knight, 
Sprung from his horse, and, from a crag, 
Waved 'twixt the hosts a milk-white flag, 
Clarion and trumpet by his side 
Rung forth a truce-note high and wide, 
While, in the Monarch's name, afar 
A herald's voice forbade the war, 

i [The MS. reads :— 

" It tinged the boats and lake with flame." 
The eight closing lines of the stanza are interpolated on a slip of 
paper.] N 



1 94 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto VI. 

For Both well's lord, and Roderick bold, 

Were both, he said, in captive hold." 

— But here the lay made sudden stand, 

The harp escaped the minstrel's hand ! — 

Oft had he stolen a glance, to spy 

How Roderick brook'd his minstrelsy : 

At first, the Chieftain, to the chime, 

With lifted hand, kept feeble time ; 

That motion ceased, — yet feeling strong 

Varied his look as changed the song ;* 

At length, no more his deafen'd ear 

The minstrel melody can hear ; 

His face grows sharp,~_his hands are clench'd, 

As if some pang his heart-strings wrench 'd \ 

Set are his teeth, his fading eye 2 

Is sternly fixed on vacancy ; 

Thus, motionless, and moanless, drew 

His parting breath, stout Roderick Dhu ! — 3 

Old Allan-bane look'd on aghast, 

While grim and still his spirit pass'd ; 

But when he saw that life was fled, 

He pour'd his wailing o'er the dead. 

XXII. 
Hamott 

" And art thou cold and lowly laid, 4 
Thy foeman's dread, thy people's aid, 
Breadalbane's boast, Clan- Alpine's shade ! 
For thee shall none a requiem say ? 

* [MS.—" Glow'd in his looks, as swell'd the song."] 
8[ MS.— «his{8^g}eye.»] 

3 See Appendix, Note 3 U. 

4 [MS. — " 'And art thou gone.' the Minstrel said."] 



Canto VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 195 

— For thee, — who loved the minstrel's lay, 
For thee, of Both well's house the stay, 
The shelter of her exiled line, 1 
E'en in this prison-house of thine, 
I'll wail for Alpine's honour'd Pine ! 

44 What groans shall yonder valleys fill ! 
What shrieks of grief shall rend yon hill ! 
What tears of burning rage shall thrill, 
When mourns thy tribe thy battles done, 
Thy fall before the race was won, 
Thy sword ungirt ere set of sun ! 
There breathes not clansman of thy line, 

But would have given his life for thine 

O woe for Alpine's honour'd Pine ! 

44 Sad was thy lot on mortal stage ! — 
The captive thrush may brook the cage, 
The prison'd eagle dies for rage. 
Brave spirit, do not scorn my strain ! 
And, when its notes awake again, 
Even she, so long beloved in vain, 
Shall with my harp her voice combine, 
And mix her woe and tears with mine, 
To wail Clan- Alpine's honour'd Pine." 

XXIII. 

Ellen, the while, with bursting heart, 
Remain'd in lordly bower apart, 
Where play'd, with many-colour'd gleams, 
Through storied pane the rising beams. 



1 [MS.—" The mightiest of a mighty line", j 



196 THE LADY OP THE LAKE. Canto VI. 

In vain on gilded roof they fall, 
And lighten'd up a tapestried wall, 
And for her use a menial train 
A rich collation spread in vain. 
The banquet proud, the chamber gay, 1 
Scarce drew the curious glance astray ; 
Or, if she look'd, 'twas but to say, 
With better omen dawn'd the day 
In that lone isle, where waved on high 
The dun-deer's hide for canopy ; 
Where oft her noble father shared 
The simple meal her care prepared, 
While Lufra, crouching by her side, 
Her station claim'd with jealous pride, 
And Douglas, bent on woodland game, 2 
Spoke of the chase to Malcolm Grseme, 
Whose answer, oft at random made, 

The wandering of his thoughts betray 'd 

Those who such simple joys have known, 
Are taught- to prize them when they're gone. 
But sudden, see, she lifts her head ! 
The window seeks with cautious tread. 
What distant music has the power 
To win her in this woeful hour ! 
Twas from a turret that o'erhung 
Her latticed bower, the strain was sung. 

XXIV. 
Hag of fyt $m$xiganzts Shmtemait. 

" My hawk is tired of perch and hood, 
My idle greyhound loathes his food, 

1 [MS. — " The banquet gay, the chamber's pride, 

Scarce drew one curious glance aside."] 

2 [MS. "earnest on his game."! 



Canto VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 197 

My horse is weary of his stall, 
And I am sick of captive thrall. 
I wish I were as I have been, 
Hunting the hart in forest green, 
With bended bow and bloodhound free, 
For that's the life is meet for me. 1 
I hate to learn the ebb of time, 
From yon dull 2 steeple's drowsy chime, 
Or mark it as the sunbeams crawl, 
Inch after inch, along the wall. 
The lark was wont my matins ring, 3 
The sable rook my vespers sing ; 
These towers, although a king's they be, 
Have not a hall of joy for me. 4 
No more at dawning morn I rise, 
And sun myself in Ellen's eyes, 
Drive the fleet deer the forest through, 
And homeward wend with evening dew ; 
A blithesome welcome blithely meet, 
And lay my trophies at her feet, 
While fled the eve on wing of glee, — 
That life is lost to love and me !" 

XXV. 

The heart-sick lay was hardly said. 
The list'ner had not turn'd her head, 
It trickled still, the starting tear, 
When light a footstep struck her ear, 
And Snowdoun's graceful Knight was near. 



i [_MS. " ■ " was meant for me."] 

2 [MS. — "From darkeri'd steeple's."] 

3 [MS. — " The lively lark my matins rung, 

The sable rook my vespers sung."] 

4 [MS. — "Have not a hall should harbour me."] 



198 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto V I. 

She turn'd the hastier, lest again 

The prisoner should renew his strain. 

" O welcome, brave Fitz- James !" she said ; 

" How may an almost orphan maid 

Pay the deep debt" " O say not so ! 

To me no gratitude you owe. 
Not mine, alas ! the boon to give, 
And bid thy noble father live ; 
I can but be thy guide, sweet maid, 
With Scotland's King thy suit to aid. 
No tyrant he, though ire and pride 
May lay his better mood aside. 
Come, Ellen, come ! — 'tis more than time, 
He holds his court at morning prime." 
With beating heart, and bosom wrung, 
As to a brother's arm she clung. 
Gently he dried the falling tear, 
And gently whisper'd hope and cheer ; 
Her faltering steps half led, half staid, 
Through gallery fair and high arcade, 
Till, at his touch, its wings of pride 
A portal arch unfolded wide, 

XXVI. 

Within 'twas brilliant all and light, 1 
A thronging scene of figures bright ; 
It glow'd on Ellen's dazzled sight, 
As when the setting sun has given 
Ten thousand hues to summer even, 
And from their tissue, fancy frames 
Aerial knights and fairy dames. 



i [MS.-*-" Within 'twas brilliant all and bright, 
The vision glow'd on Ellen's sight."] 



Canto VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 199 

Still by Fitz-James her footing staid ; 

A few faint steps she forward made, 

Then slow her drooping head she raised, 

And fearful round the presence gazed, 

For him she sought, who own'd this state, 1 

The dreaded prince whose will was fate ! — 

She gazed on many a princely port, 

Might well have ruled a royal court ; 

On many a splendid garb she gazed, — 

Then turn'd bewilder 'd and amazed, 

For all stood bare ; and, in the room, 

Fitz-James alone wore cap and plume. 

To him each lady's look was lent ; 

On him each corn-tier's eye wa3 bent ; 

Midst furs and silks and jewels sheen, 

He stood, in simple Lincoln green, 

The centre of the glittering ring, — 

And Snowdoun's Knight is Scotland's King ! 2 

XXVII. 

As wreath of snow, on mountain-breast, 

Slides from the rock that gave it rest, 

Poor Ellen glided from her stay, 3 

And at the Monarch's feet she lay ; 

No word her choking voice commands, — 

She show'd the ring — she clasp'd her hands. 

O ! not a moment could he brook, 

The generous prince, that suppliant look ! 

Gently he raised her, — and, the while, 

Check'd with a glance the circle's smile ; 



i [MS — " For him who own'd this royal state."] 

2 See Appendix, Note 3 V. 

3 [MS. " shrinking, quits her stay."! 



200 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto VI. 

Graceful, but grave, her brow he kiss'd, 

And bade her terrors be dismiss'd : — 

" Yes, Fair ; the wandering poor Fitz-James 

The fealty of Scotland claims. 

To him thy woes* thy wishes, bring ; 

He will redeem his signet ring. 

Ask nought for Douglas •, — yester even, 

His prince and he have much forgiven : 

Wrong hath he had from slanderous tongue, 

I, from his rebel kinsmen, wrong. 

We would not to the vulgar crowd 

Yield what they craved with clamour loud ; 

Calmly we heard and judged his cause, 

Our council aided, and our laws. 

I stanch'd thy father's death-feud stern, 

With stout De Vaux and Grey Glencairn ; 

And Bothwell's Lord henceforth we own 

The friend and bulwark of our Throne. — 

But, lovely infidel, how now ? 

What clouds thy misbelieving brow ? 

Lord James of Douglas, lend thine aid ; 

Thou must confirm this doubting maid." 

XXVIII. 

Then forth the noble Douglas sprung, 
And on his neck his daughter hung. 
The Monarch drank, that happy hour, 
The sweetest, holiest draught of Power, — 
When it can say, with godlike voice, 
Arise, sad Virtue, and rejoice ! 
Yet would not James the general eye 
On Nature's raptures long should pry ; 
He stepp'd between—" Nay, Douglas, nay, 
Steal not my proselyte away ! 



Canto VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 201 

The riddle 'tis my right to read, 

That brought this happy chance to speed. — 

Yes, Ellen, when disguised I stray 

In life's more low but happier way, 1 

Tis under name which veils my power, 

Nor falsely veils — for Stirling's tower 

Of yore the name of Snowdoun claims, 2 

And Normans call me James Fitz-James. 

Thus watch I o'er insulted laws, 

Thus learn to right the injured cause." — 

Then, in a tone apart and low, 

— ." Ah, little trait'ress ! none must know 

What idle dream, what lighter thought, 

What vanity full dearly bought, 

Join'd to thine eye's dark witchcraft, drew 

My spell-bound steps to Ben venue, 3 

In dangerous hour, and all but gave 

Thy Monarch's life to mountain glaive !" — 

Aloud he spoke. — " Thou still dost hold 

That little talisman of gold, 

Pledge of my faith, Fitz- James's ring— 4 

What seeks fair Ellen of the King ?" 

XXIX. 

Full well the conscious maiden guess'd, 
He probed the weakness of her breast ; 
But, with that consciousness, there came 
A lightning of her fears for Grseme, 

i [MS. — " In lowly life's more happy way."] 

2 See Appendix, Note 3 W. 

3 [MS. — " Thy sovereign back > , „ 

Thy sovereign's steps / to Benvenue. J 

4 [MS.—" Pledge of Fitz-James's faith, the ring. "J 



202 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. Canto VI. 

And * more she deem'd the Monarch's ire 
Kindled 'gainst him, who, for her sire, 
Rebellious broadsword boldly drew ; 
And, to her generous feeling true, 

She craved the grace of Roderick Dhu 

" Forbear thy suit : — The King of Kings 

Alone can stay life's parting wings, 

I know his heart, I know his hand, 

Have shared his cheer, and proved his brand : — 

My fairest earldom would I give 

To bid Clan- Alpine's Chieftain live ! — 

Hast thou no other boon to crave ? 

No other captive friend to save ? " 

Blushing, she turn'd her from the King, 

And to the Douglas gave the ring, 

As if she wish'd her sire to speak 

The suit that stain'd her glowing cheek. 

" Nay, then, my pledge has lost its force, 

And stubborn justice holds her course. 

Malcolm, come forth ! " And, at the word, 

Down kneel'd the Greeme to Scotland's Lord. 

" For thee, rash youth, no suppliant sues, 

From thee may Vengeance claim her dues, 

Who, nurtured underneath our smile, 

Hast paid our care by treacherous wile, 

And sought, amid thy faithful clan, 

A refuge for an outlaw'd man, 



i [MS. — " And in her breast strove maiden shame 
More deep she deem'd the Monarch's ire 
Kindled 'gainst him, who, for her sire, 
Against his Sovereign broadsword drew ; 
And, with a pleading, warm and true, 
She craved the grace of Roderick Dhu."] 



Canto VI. THE GUARD-ROOM. 203 

Dishonouring thus thy loyal name 

Fetters and warder for the Graeme ! " 

His chain of gold the King unstrung, 
The links o'er Malcolm's neck he flung, 
Then gently drew the glittering band, 
And laid the clasp on Ellen's hand. 



Harp of the North, farewell ! The hills grow dark, 

On purple peaks a deeper shade descending ; 
In twilight copse the glow-worm lights her spark, 

The deer, half-seen, are to the covert wending. 
Resume thy wizard elm ! the fountain lending, 

And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy ; 
Thy numbers sweet with nature's vespers blending, 

With distant echo from the fold and lea, 
And herd-boy's evening pipe, and hum of housing bee. 

Yet, once again, farewell, thou Minstrel Harp ! 

Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway, 
And little reck I of the censure sharp 

May idly cavil at an idle lay. 
Much have I owed thy strains on life's long way. 

Through secret woes the world has never known, 
When on the weary night dawn'd wearier day, 

And bitterer was the grief devour'd alone. 
That I o'erlive such woes, Enchantress ! is thine own. 

Hark ! as my lingering footsteps slow retire, 
Some Spirit of the Air has waked thy string ! 



204 THE LADY OP THE LAKE. Canto VI. 

'Tis now a seraph bold, with touch of fire, 
Tis now the brush of Fairy's frolic wing. 

Receding now, the dying numbers ring 
Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell, 

And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring 
A wandering witch-note of the distant spell — 

And now, 'tis silent all ! — Enchantress, fare thee well ! 






[ 205 ] 



APPENDIX. 



Note A. 

The heaths of Uam-Var.—F. 17. 

Ua-var, as the name is pronounced, or more properly Uaighmor, 
is a mountain to the north-east of the village of Callender in Men- 
teith, deriving its name, which signifies the great den, or cavern, 
from a sort of retreat among the rocks on the south side, said, by 
tradition, to have been the abode of a giant. In latter times, it 
was the refuge of robbers and banditti, who have been only extir- 
pated within these forty or fifty years. Strictly speaking, this 
stronghold is not a cave, as the name would imply, but a sort of 
small enclosure, or recess, surrounded with large rocks, and open 
above head. It may have been originally designed as a toil for 
deer, who might get in from the outside, but would find it difficult 
to return. This opinion prevails among the old sportsmen and 
deer-stalkers in the neighbourhood. 

Note B. 
Lochard.—P. 19. 

" About a mile to the westward of the inn of Aberfoyle, Lochard 
opens to the view. A few hundred yards to the east of it, the 
Avendow, which had just issued from the lake, tumbles its waters 
over a rugged precipice of more than thirty feet in height, forming, 
in the rainy season, several very magnificent cataracts. 

The first opening of the lower lake, from the east, is uncom- 
monly picturesque. Directing the eye nearly westward, Benlomond 



206 Appendix to 

raises its pyramidal mass in the background. In nearer prospect, 
you have gentle eminences, covered with oak and birch to the very 
summit ; the bare rocks sometimes peeping through amongst the 
clumps. Immediately under the eye, the lower lake, stretching 
out from narrow beginnings, to a breadth of about half a mile, is 
seen in full prospect. On the right, the banks are skirted with 
extensive oak woods, which cover the mountain more than half 
way up. 

" Advancing to the westward, the view of the lake is lost for 
about a mile. The upper lake, which is by far the most extensive, 
is separated from the lower by a stream of about two hundred yards 
in length. The most advantageous view of the upper lake presents 
itself from a rising ground near its lower extremity, where a foot- 
path strikes off to the sputh into the wood that overhangs this con- 
necting stream. Looking westward, Benlomond is seen in the 
background, rising, at the distance of six miles, in the form of a 
regular cone, its sides presenting a gentle slope to the N.W. and 
S.E. On the right is the lofty mountain of Benoghrie, running 
west, towards the deep vale in which Lochcon lies concealed from 
the eye. In the foreground, Lochard stretches out to the west in 
fairest prospect ; its length three miles, and itsbreadthamile and 
a half. On the right, it is skirted with woods ; the northern and 
western extremity of the lake is diversified with meadows, and corn 
fields, and farm houses. On the left, few marks of cultivation are 
to be seen. 

" Farther on, the traveller passes along the verge of the lake 
under a ledge of rock, from thirty to fifty feet high ; and, standing 
immediately under this rock, towards its western extremity, he 
has a double echo, of uncommon distinctness. Upon pronouncing, 
with a firm voice, aline often syllables, it is returned, first from the 
opposite side of the lake ; and when that is finished, it is repeated 
with equal distinctness from the wood on the east. The day must 
be perfectly calm, and the lake as smooth as glass, for otherwise 
no human voice can be returned from a distance of at least a quar- 
ter of a mile."— Graham's Sketches of Perthshire, second edition, 
p. 182, &c. 



Note C. 



-Loch Vennachar. 

-The BriggofTurk.—P. 20. 



" Loch Vennachar, a beautiful expanse of water, of about five 
miles in length, by a mile and a half in breadth." — Graham. 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 207 

" About a mile above Loch Vennachar, the approach (from the 
east) to the Brigg or Bridge of Turk, (the scene of the death of a 
wild-boar famous in Celtic tradition,) leads to the summit of an 
eminence, where there bursts upon the traveller's eye a sudden and 
wide prospect of the windings of the river that issues from Loch 
Achray, with that sweet lake itself in front ; the gently rolling 
river pursues its serpentine course through an extensive meadow ; 
at the west end of the lake, on the side of Aberfoyle, is situated 
the delightful farm of Achray, the level field, a denomination justly 
due to it, when considered in contrast with the rugged rocks and 
mountains which surround it. From this eminence are to be seen 
also, on the right hand, the entrance to Glenfinlas, and in the dis- 
tance Benvenue." — Graham. 



Note D. 

Two dogs of black Saint Hubert's breed, 
Unmatch'dfor courage, breath, and speed.— ¥.20. 

" The hounds which we call Saint Hubert's hounds, are com- 
monly all blacke, yet, neuertheless, their race is so mingled at these 
days, that we find them of all colours. These are the hounds 
which the abbots of St. Hubert haue always kept some of their 
race or kind, in honour or remembrance of the saint, -which was a 
hunter with S. Eustace. Whereupon we may conceiue that (by 
the grace of God) all good huntsmen shall follow them into paradise. 
To return vnto my former purpose, this kind of doggies hath beene 
dispersed through the countries of Henault, Lorayne, Flanders, 
and Burgone. They are mighty of body, neuertheless their leggies 
are low and short, likewise they are not swift, although they be very 
good of sent, hunting chases which are farre straggled, feiring nei- 
ther water nor cold, and do more couet the chaces that smell, as 
foxes, bore, and such like, than other, because they find themselves 
neither of swiftness nor courage to hunt and kill the chases that are 
lighter and swifter. The blood hounds of this colour proue good, 
especially those that are cole blacke, but I made no great account 
to breede on them, or to keepe the kind, and yet I found a book 
which a hunter did dedicate to a prince of Lorayne, which seemed 
to loue hunting much, wherein was a blazon which the same hun- 
ter gaue to his bloodhound, called Souyllard, which was white : — 
* My name came first from holy Hubert's race, 
Souyllard my sire, a hound of singular grace.' 

Whereupon we may presume that some of the kind prooue white 



208 APPENDIX TO 

sometimes, but they are not of the kind of the Greffiers or Bouxes 
which we haue at these dayes." — The noble Art of Venerie or 
Hunting, translated and collected for the Use of all Noblemen and 
Gentlemen. Lond. 1611. 4to, p. 15. 



Note E. 

For the death-wound and death-halloo, 
Muster' d his breath, his whinyard drew. — P. 21. 

When the stag turned to bay, the ancient hunter had the 
perilous task of going in upon, and killing or disabling the desperate 
animal. At certain times of the year this was held particularly 
dangerous, a wound received from a stag's horn being then deemed 
poisonous, and more dangerous than one from the tusks of a boar, 
as the old rhyme testifies : 

" If thou be hurt with hart, it brings thee to thy bier, 
But barber's hand will boar's hurt heal, therefore thou need'st not 
fear." 

At all times, however, the task was dangerous, and to be adven- 
tured upon wisely and warily, either by getting behind the stag 
while he was gazing on the hounds, or by watching an opportunity 
to gallop roundly in upon him, and kill him with the sword. See 
many directions to this purpose in the Booke of Hunting, chap. 41. 
Wilson the historian has recorded a providential escape which be- 
fell him in this hazardous sport, while a youth, and follower of the 
Earl of Essex. 

" Sir Peter Lee, of Lime, in Cheshire, invited my lord one sum- 
mer to hunt the stagg. And having a great stagg in chase, and 
many gentlemen in the pursuit, the stagg took soyle. And divers, 
^hereof I was one, alighted, and stood with swords drawne, to have 
a t at him, at his coming out of the water. The staggs there 
being wonderfully fierce and dangerous, made us youths more eager 
to be at him. But he escaped us all. And it was my misfortune 
to be hindered of my coming nere him, the way being sliperie, by 
a falle ; which gave occasion to some, who did not know mee, to 
speak as if I had falne for feare. Which being told mee, I left the 
stagg, and followed the gentleman who [_first] spake it. But I found 
him of that cold temper, that it seems his words made an escape 
from him ; as by his denial and repentance it appeared. But this 
made mee more violent in the pursuit of the stagg, to recover my 
reputation. And I happened to be the only horseman in, when 
the dogs sett him up at bay ; and approaching near him on horse- 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 209 

backe, he broke through the dogs, and run at raee, and tore my 
horse's side with his homes, close by my thigh. Then I quitted 
my horse, and grew more cunning, (for the dogs had sette him up 
againe, ) stealing behind him with my sword, and cut his ham- 
strings ; and then got upon his back, and cut his throate ; which, 
as I was doing, the company came in, and blamed my rashness for 
running such a hazard. "—Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, ii. 464. 



Note F. 

Highland plunderers.— P. 27. 

The clans who inhabited the romantic regions in the neighbour- 
hood of Loch Katrine, were, even until a late period, much ad- 
dicted to predatory excursions upon their Lowland neighbours. 
" In former times, those parts of this district which are situated 
beyond the Grampian range, were rendered almost inaccessible by 
strong barriers of rocks, and mountains, and lakes. It was a bor- 
der country, and though on the very verge of the low country, it 
was almost totally sequestered from the world, and, as it were, in- 
sulated with respect to society. 'Tis well known that in the High- 
lands, it was, in former times, accounted not only lawful, but ho- 
nourable, among hostile tribes, to commit depredations on one 
another ; and these habits of the age were perhaps strengthened in 
this district, by the circumstances which have been mentioned. It 
bordered on a country, the inhabitants of which, while they were 
richer, were less warlike than they, and widely differenced by lan- 
guage and manners." Graham's Sketches of Scenery in Perthshire. 
Edin. 1806, p. 97- The reader will therefore be pleased to remem- 
ber, that the scene of this poem is laid in a time, 

" When tooming faulds, or sweeping of a glen, 
Had still been held the deed of gallant men." 



Note G. 

A grey-hair d sire, whose eye intent 
Was on the visiortd future lent — P. 33. 

If force of evidence could authorize us to believe facts incon- 
sistent with the general laws of nature, enough might be produced 
in favour of the existence of the Second-sight. It is called in 
Gaelic Taishitaraugh, from Taish, an unreal or shadowy appear- 



210 APPENDIX TO 

ance ; and those possessed of the faculty are called Taishairin, 
which may be aptly translated visionaries. Martin, a steady be- 
liever in the second-sight, gives the following account of it : — 

" The second-sight is a singular faculty, of seeing an otherwise 
invisible object, without any previous means used by the person 
that used it for that end : the vision makes such a lively impres- 
sion upon the seers, that they neither see, nor think of any thing 
else, except the vision, so long as it continues ; and then they ap- 
pear pensive or jovial, according to the object which was repre- 
sented to them. 

" At the sight of a vision, the eyelids of the person are erected, 
and the eyes continue staring until the object vanish. This is ob- 
vious to others who are by, when the persons happen to see a vision, 
and occurred more than once to my own observation and to others 
that were with me. 

" There is one in Skie, of whom his acquaintance observed, that 
when he sees a vision, the inner part of his eyelids turns so far up- 
wards, that, after the object disappears, he must draw them down 
with his fingers, and sometimes employ others to draw them down, 
which he finds to be the much easier way. 

" The faculty of the second-sight does not lineally descend in 
a family, as some imagine, for I know several parents who are 
endowed with it, but their children not, and vice versa ; neither is 
it acquired by any previous compact. And, after a strict enquiry, 
I could never learn that this faculty was communicable any way 
whatsoever. 

" The seer knows neither the object, time, nor place of a vision, 
before it appears ; and the same object is often seen by different 
persons, living at a considerable distance from one another. The 
true way of judging as to the time and circumstance of an object, 
is by observation ; for several persons of judgment, without this 
faculty, are more capable to judge of the design of a vision, than a 
novice that is a seer. If an object appear in the day or night, it 
will come to pass sooner or later accordingly. 

"If an object is seen early in the morning, (which is not fre- 
quent,) it will be accomplished in a few hours afterwards. If at 
noon, it will commonly be accomplished that very day. If in the 
evening, perhaps that night : if after candles be lighted, it will be 
accomplished that night : the later always in accomplishment, by 
weeks, months, and sometimes years, according to the time of 
night the vision is seen. 

' ' When a shroud is perceived about one, it is a sure prognostic 
of death ; the time is judged according to the height of it about the 
person ; for if it is seen above the middle, death is not to be ex- 
pected for the space of a year, and perhaps some months longer ; 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE, 211 

and as it is frequently seen to ascend higher towards the head, 
death is concluded to he at hand within a few days, if not hours, 
as daily experience confirms. Examples of this kind were shown 
me, when the persons of whom the observations were then made, 
enjoyed perfect health. 

" One instance was lately foretold by a seer, that was a novice, 
concerning the death of one of my acquaintance ; this was com- 
municated to a few only, and with great confidence : I being one 
of the number, did not in the least regard it, until the death of the 
person, about the time foretold, did confirm me of the certainty of 
the prediction. The novice mentioned above is now a skilful seer, 
as appears from many late instances ; he lives in the parish of St. 
Mary's, the most northern in Skie. 

" If a woman is seen standing at a man's left hand, it is a pre- 
sage that she will be his wife, whether they be married to others, 
or unmarried at the time of the apparition. 

" If two or three women are seen at once near a man's left hand, 
she that is next him will undoubtedly be his wife first, and so on 
whether all three, or the man, be single or married at the time of 
the vision or not ; of which there are several late instances among 
those of my acquaintance. It is an ordinary thing for them to see 
a man that is to come to the house shortly after : and if he is not 
of the seer's acquaintance, yet he gives such a lively description of 
his stature, complexion, habit, &c. that upon his arrival he answers 
the character given him in all respects. 

" If the person so appearing be one of the seer's acquaintance, 
he will tell his name as well as other particulars ; and he can tell 
by his countenance whether he comes in a good or bad humour. 

'* I have been seen thus myself by seers of both sexes, at some 
hundred miles' distance ; some that saw me in this manner had 
never seen me personally, and it happened according to their vision, 
without any previous design of mine to go to those places, my 
coming there being purely accidental. 

" It is ordinary with them to see houses, gardens, and trees, in ■ 
places void of all three ; and this in progress of time uses to be ac- 
complished : as at Mogshot, in the Isle of Skie, where there were 
but a few sorry cowhouses, thatched with straw, yet in a very few 
years after, the vision, which appeared often, was accomplished, 
by the building of several good houses on the very spot represented 
by the seers, and by the planting of orchards there. 

" To see a spark of fire fall upon one's arm or breast, is a fore- 
runner of a dead child to be seen in the arms of those persons ; of 
which there are several fresh instances. 

" To see a seat empty at the time of one's sitting in it, is a pre- 
sage of that person's death soon after. 



212 



APPENDIX TO 



" When a novice, or one that has lately obtained the second- 
sight, sees a vision in the night-time without doors, and he be near 
a fire, he presently falls into a swoon. 

" Some find themselves as it were in a crowd of people, having a 
corpse which they carry along with them ; and after such visions 
the seers come in sweating, and describe the people that appeared ; 
if there be any of their acquaintance among 'em, they give an 
account of their names, as also of the bearers, but they know no- 
thing concerning the corpse. 

" All those who have the second-sight do not always see these 
visions at once, though they be together at the time. But if one 
who has this faculty, designedly touch his fellow-seer at the instant 
of a vision's appearing, then the second sees it as well as the first ; 
and this is sometimes discerned by those that are near them on 
such occasions." — Martin's Description of the Western Islands, 
1716, 8vo, p. 300, et seq. 

To these particulars innumerable examples might be added, all 
attested by grave and credible authors. But, in despite of evidence, 
which neither Bacon, Boyle, nor Johnson, were able to resist, the 
Taisch, with all its visionary properties, seems to be now univer- 
sally abandoned to the use of poetry. The exquisitely beautiful 
poem of Lochiel will at once occur to the recollection of every 
reader. 



Note H. 

Here, for retreat in dangerous hour, 

Some chief had framed a rustic bower.— -P. 34. 

The Celtic chieftains, whose lives were continually exposed to 
peril, had usually, in the most retired spot of their domains, some 
place of retreat for the hour of necessity, which, as circumstances 
would admit, was a tower, a cavern, or a rustic hut, in a strong 
and secluded situation. One of these last gave refuge to the un- 
fortunate Charles Edward, in his perilous wanderings after the 
battle of Culloden. 

" It was situated in the face of a very rough, high, and rocky 
mountain, called Letternilichk, still a part of Benalder, full of great 
stones and crevices, and some scattered wood interspersed. The 
habitation called the Cage, in the face of that mountain, was within 
a small thick bush of wood. There were first some rows of trees 
laid down, in order to level the floor for a habitation ; and as the 
place was steep, this raised the lower side to an equal height with 
the other : and these trees, in the way of joists or planks, were 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 213 

levelled with earth and gravel. There were betwixt the trees, 
growing naturally on their own roots, some stakes fixed in the earth, 
which, with the trees, were interwoven with ropes, made of heath 
and birch twigs, up to the top of the Cage, it being of a round or 
rather oval shape ; and the whole thatched and covered over with 
fog. The whole fabric hung, as it were, by a large tree, which 
reclined from the one end, all along the roof, to the other, and 
which gave it the name of the Cage ; and by chance there happened 
to be two stones at a small distance from one another, in the side 
next the precipice, resembling the pillars of a chimney, where the 
fire was placed. The smoke had its vent out here, all along the 
fall of the rock, which was so much of the same colour, that one 
could discover no difference in the clearest day." — Home's History 
of the Rebellion, Lond. 1802, 4to, p. 381. 

Note I. 

My sire's tall form might grace the part 
Of Ferragus or Ascabart.—P. 37. 

These two sons of Anak flourished in romantic fable. The first 
is well known to the admirers of Ariosto, by the name of Ferrau. 
He was an antagonist of Orlando, and was at length slain by him 
in single combat. There is a romance in the Auchinleck MS., in 
which Ferragus is thus described : — 

" On a day come tiding 
Unto Charls the King, 

Al of a doughti knight 
Was comen to Xavers, 
Stout he was and fers, 

Vernagu he hight. 
Of Babiloun the soudan 
Thider him sende gan, 

With King Charls to fight. 
So hard he was to-fond 1 
That no dint of brond 

No greued him, aplight. 
He hadde twenti men strengthe 
And forti fet of lengthe, 



Found, proved. 



214 APPENDIX TO 

Thilke painim hede, l 
And four feet in the face, 
Y-meten 2 in the place, 

And fifteen in brede. 3 
His nose was a fot and more ; 
His brow, as bristles wore ; 4 

He that it seighe it sede. 
He loked lotheliche, 
And was swart 6 as any piche, 

Of him men might adrede." 
Romance erf Charlemagne, 1. 461 — 484. Auchinleck MS., foL 265. 

Ascapart, or Ascabart, makes a very material figure in the 
History of Bevis of Hampton, by whom he was conquered. His 
effigies may be seen guarding one side of a gate at Southampton, 
while the other is occupied by Sir Bevis himself. The dimensions 
of Ascabart were little inferior to those of Ferragus, if the follow- 
ing description be correct :— ■ 

" They metten with a geaunt, 

With a lotheliche semblaunt. 

He was wonderliche strong, 

Rome 6 thretti fote long. 

His berd was bot gret and rowe ; 7 

A space of a fote betweene is 8 browe : 

His clob was, to yeue 9 a strok, 

A lite bodi of an oak. 10 

" Beues hadde of him wonder gret, 
And askede him what he het, 1 ] 
And yaf ! 2 men of his contre 
Were ase meche 13 ase was he. 
* Me name,' a sede, 14 ' is Ascopard, 
Garci me sent hiderward, 
For to bring this quene ayen 
And the Beues her of slenJ 5 
Icham Garci is 16 champioun, 
And was i-driue out of me * 7 toun 



1 Had. 2 Measured. 3 Breadth. 4 Were 5 Black. 6 p u n y 
7 Rough. 8 His. 9 Give. 10 The stem of a little oak-tree. 1 1 He 
bight, was called, 12 if. 1 3 Great. 14 He said. 1 5 slay. 16 His 
i7My. 






THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 215 

Al for that ich was so lite. 1 
Eueri man me wolde smite, 
Ich was so lite and so merugh, 2 
Eueri man me clepede dwerugh. 3 
And now icham in this londe, 
I wax mor 4 ich understonde, 
And stranger than other tene ; 5 
And that schel on us be sene.' " 
Mr Bevis of Hampton, 1. 2512. Auchinleck BIS., foL 189. 



Note K. 

— And still a harp unseen 

FUl'd up the symphony between.— P. 39. 

" They" (meaning the Highlanders) " delight much in musicke, 
but chiefly in harps and clairschoes of their own fashion. The 
strings of the clairschoes are made of brass wire, and the strings of 
the harps of sinews ; which strings they strike either with their 
nayles, growing long, or else with an instrument appointed for that 
use. They take great pleasure to decke their harps and clairschoes 
with silver and precious stones ; the poore ones that cannot attayne 
hereunto, decke them with christall. They sing verses prettily 
compound, contayning (for the most part) prayses of valiant men. 
There is not almost any other argument, whereof their rhymes in- 
treat. They speak the ancient French language, altered a little. "6 
— " The harp and clairschoes are now only heard of in the High- 
lands in ancient song. At what period these instruments ceased 
to be used, is not on record ; and tradition is silent on this head. 
But, as Irish harpers occasionally visited the Highlands and Wes- 
tern Isles till lately, the harp might have been extant so late as the 
middle of the present century. Thus far we know, that f;om re- 
mote times down to the present, harpers were received as welcome 
guests, particularly in the Highlands of Scotland ; and so late as 
the latter end of the sixteenth century, as appears by the above 
quotation, the harp was in common use among the natives of the 
Western Isles. How it happened that the noisy and inharmonious 
bagpipe banished the soft and expressive harp, we cannot say ; but 



i Little. 2 Lean. 3 Dwarf. 4 Greater, taller. 5 Ten. 
6 Vide " Certayne Matters concerning the llealme of Scotland, 
&c. as they were Anno Domini 1597. London, 1603." 4to. 



216 APPENDIX TO 

certain it is, that the bagpipe is now the only instrument that ob- 
tains universally in the Highland districts." — Campbell's Journey 
through North Britain. London, 1808. 4to. I. 175. 

Mr. Gunn, of Edinburgh, has lately published a curious Essay 
upon the Harp and Harp Music of the Highlands of Scotland. 
That the instrument was once in common use there, is most certain. 
Cleland numbers an acquaintance with it among the few accom- 
plishments which his satire allows to the Highlanders : — 
" In nothing they're accounted sharp, 
Except in bagpipe or in harp." 



Note L. 

Morn's genial influence roused a minstrel grey.— V. 45. 

That Highland chieftains, to a late period, retained in their ser- 
vice the bard, as a family officer, admits of very easy proof. The 
author of the Letters from the North of Scotland, an officer of en- 
gineers, quartered at Inverness about 1720, who certainly cannot 
be deemed a favourable witness, gives the following account of the 
office, and of a bard, whom he heard exercise his talent of recita- 
tion : — "The bard is skilled in the genealogy of all the Highland 
families, sometimes preceptor to the young laird, celebrates in 
Irish verse the original of the tribe, the famous warlike actions of 
the successive heads, and sings his own lyricks as an opiate to the 
chief, when indisposed for sleep ; but poets are not equally esteem- 
ed and honoured in all countries. I happened to be a witness of 
the dishonour done to the muse, at the house of one of the chiefs, 
where two of these bards were set at a good distance, at the lower 
end of a long table, with a parcel of Highlanders of no extraordi- 
nary appearance, over a cup of ale. Poor inspiration! They 
were not asked to drink a glass of wine at our table, though the 
whole company consisted only of the great man, one of his near re- 
lations, and myself. After some little time, the chief ordered one 
of them to sing me a Highland song. The bard readily obeyed, 
and with a hoarse voice, and in a tune of few various notes, began, 
as I was told, one of his own lyricks ; and when he had proceeded 
to the fourth or fifth stanza, I perceived, by the names of several 
persons, glens, and mountains, which I had known or heard of 
before, that it was an account of some clan battle. But in his 
going on, the chief (who piques himself upon his school-learning) 
at some particular passage, bid him cease, and cryed out, ' There's 
nothing like that in Virgil or Homer.' I bowed, and told him I 
believed so. This you may believe was very edifying and delight- 
ful. "—Letters, ii. 167- 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. '217 

Note M. 

The Grceme.—Y. 49. 

The ancient and powerful family of Graham (which, for me- 
trical reasons, is here spelt after the Scottish pronunciation) held 
extensive possessions in the counties of Dumbarton and Stirling. 
Few familes can boast of more historical renown, having claim to 
three of the most remarkable characters in the Scottish annals. Sir 
John the Graeme, the faithful and undaunted partaker of the la- 
bours and patriotic warfare of Wallace, fell in the unfortunate 
field of Falkirk, in 1298. The celebrated Marquis of Montrose, 
in whom De Retz saw realized his abstract idea of the heroes of 
antiquity, was the second of these worthies. And, notwithstanding 
the severity of his temper, and the rigour with which he executed 
the oppressive mandates of the princes whom he served, I do not 
hesitate to name as a third, John Graeme, of Claverhouse, Viscount 
of Dundee, whose heroic death, in the arms of victory, may be 
allowed to cancel the memory of his cruelty to the non-conform- 
ists, during the reigns of Charles II. and James II. 

Note N. 

This harp, which erst Saint Modan sway'd.—V. 49* 

I am not prepared to show that Saint Modan was a performer on 
the harp. It was, however, no unsaintly accomplishment ; for 
Saint Dunstan certainly did play upon that instrument, which re- 
taining, as was natural, a portion of the sanctity attached to its 
master's character, announced future events by its spontaneous 
sound. " But labouring once in these mechanic arts for a devout 
matrone that had sett him on work, his violl, that hung by him on 
the wall, of its own accord, without anie man's helpe, distinctly 
sounded this anthime: Gaudent in calis animce sanctorum qui 
Christi vestigia sunt secuti; et quia pro eius amore sanguinem 
suum fuderunt, ideo cum Christo gaudent ceternum. Whereat all 
the companie being much astonished, turned their eyes from be- 
holding him working, to looke on that strange accident." . . . 
" Not long after, manie of the court that hitherunto had borne a 
kind of fayned friendship towards him, began now greatly to envie 
at his progresse and rising in goodnes, using manie crooked, back- 
biting meanes to diffame his vertues with the black maskes of hy- 
pocrisie. And the better to authorize their calumnie, they brought 



213 APPENDIX TO 

in this that happened in the violl, affirming it to have been done by 
art magick. What more ? This wicked rumour encreaaed dayly, 
till the king and others of the nohilitie taking hould thereof, Dun- 
stan grew odious in their sight. Therefore he resolued to leaue the 
court, and goe to Elphegus, surnamed the Bauld, then bishop of 
Winchester, who was his cozen. Which his enemies understand- 
ing, they layd wayt for him in the way, and hauing throwne him off 
his horse, beate him, and dragged him in the durt in the most 
miserable manner, meaning to have slaine him, had not a companie 
of mastiue dogges, that came unlookit uppon them, defended and 
redeemed him from their crueltie. When with sorrow he was 
ashamed to see dogges more humane than they, and giuing 
thankes to Almightie God, he sensibly againe perceiued that the 
tunes of his violl had giuen him a warning of future accidents." — 
Floiver of the Lives of the most renowned Saincts of England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland, by the R. Father Hierome Porter. Doway. 
1632. 4to. Tome I. p. 438. 

The same supernatural circumstance is alluded to by the anony- 
mous author of " Grim, the Collier of Croydon." 

« [LHinstan's harp sounds on the wall'} 

" Forest. Hark, hark, my lords, the holy abbot's harp 

Sounds by itself so hanging on the wall ! 
" Dunstan. Unhallow'd man, that scorn'st the sacred rede, 

Hark, how the testimony of my truth 

Sounds heavenly music with an angel's hand, 

To testify Dunstan's integrity, 

And prove thy active boast of no effect." 



Note O. 

Ere Douglasses, to ruin driven, 

Were exiled from their native heaven. — P. 50. 

The downfall of the Douglasses of the house of Angus, during 
the reign of James V., is the event alluded to in the text. The 
Earl of Angus, it will be remembered, had married the queen 
dowager, and availed himself of the right which he thus acquired, 
as well as of his extensive power, to retain the king in a sort of 
tutelage, which approached very near to captivity. Several open 
attempts were made to rescue James from this thraldom, with 
which he was well known to be deeply disgusted ; but the vaJflur 
of the Douglasses, and their allies, gave them the victory in every 
conflict. At length, the king, while residing at Falkland, contrived 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 219 

to escape by night out of his own court and palace, and rode full 
speed to Stirling Castle, where the governor, who was of the oppo- 
site faction, joyfully received him. Being thus at liberty, James 
speedily summoned around him such peers as he knew to be most 
inimical to the domination of Angus, and laid his complaint be- 
fore them, says Pitscottie, " with great lamentations : showing to 
them how he was holden in subjection, thir years bygone, by the 
Earl of Angus, and his kin and friends, who oppressed the whole 
country, and spoiled it, under the pretence of justice and his 
authority ; and had slain many of his lieges, kinsmen, and friends, 
because they would have had it mended at their hands, and put 
him at liberty, as he ought to have been, at the counsel of his whole 
lords, and not have been subjected and corrected with no particu- 
lar men, by the rest of his nobles : Therefore, said he, I desire, 
my lords, that I may be satisfied of the said earl, his kin, and 
friends ; for I avow, that Scotland shall not hold us both, while 
[i e. till] I be revenged on him and his. 

" The lords hearing the king's complaint and lamentation, and 
also the great rage, fury, and malice, that he bore toward the Earl 
of Angus, his kin, and friends, they concluded all, and thought it 
best that he should be summoned to underly the law ; if he found 
no caution, nor yet compear himself, that he should be put to the 
horn, with all his kin and friends, so many as were contained m 
the letters. And farther, the lords ordained, by advice of his mar 
jesty, that his brother and friends should be summoned to find 
caution to underly the law within a certain day, or else be put to 
the horn. But the earl appeared not, nor none for him ; and so 
he was put to the horn, with all his kin and friends : so many as 
were contained in the summons, that compeared not, were banished, 
and holden traitors to the king.'* 



Note P. 

In Holy-Rood a KnigM he slew.— P. 53. 

This was by no means an uncommon occurrence in the Court of 
Scotland ; nay, the presence of the sovereign himself scarcely re- 
strained the ferocious and inveterate feuds which were the per- 
petual source of bloodshed among the Scottish nobility. The fol- 
lowing instance of the murder of Sir William Stuart of Ochiltree, 
called The Bloody, by the celebrated Francis, Earl of Bothwell, 
mdif* be produced among many ; but as the offence given in the 
royal court will hardly bear a vernacular translation, I shall leave 



220 APPENDIX TO 

the story in Johnstone's Latin, referring for farther particulars to 
the naked simplicity of Birrell's Diary, 30th July, 1588. 

" Mors improbi hominis non tarn ipsa immerita, quam pesslmo 
exemplo in publicum, fade perpetrate. Gulielmus Stuartus Alkil- 
trius, Aranif rater, naturd ac moribus, cujus scepius memini, vulgo 
propter sitlm sanguinis sanguinarius dictus, a Bothvelio, in Sanclce 
Crucis Begid, exardescente ird, mendacii probro lacessitus, obscce- 
num osculum liberius retorquebat ; Bothvelius hanc contumeliam 
tacitus tulit, sed ingentum irarum molem animo concepit. Utrinque 
postridie Edinburgi conventum, totidem numero comitibus armatis, 
prcesidii causa, et acriter pugnatum est ; cceteris amicis et clientibus 
metu torpentibus, aut vi absterritis, ipse Stuartus fortissime dimicat ; 
tandem excusso gladio d Bothvelio, Scythicd feritate transfoditur, 
sine cujusquam misericordid ; habuit itaque quern debuit exitum. 
Dignus erat Stuartus qui pateretur ; Bothvelius quifaceret. Vulgus 
sanguinem sanguine prcedicabat 9 et horum cruore innocuorum mani- 
bus egregie parentatum." — Johnston r Historia Rerum Britanni- 
carum, ab anno 1572 ad annum 1628. Amstelodami, 1655, fol. p. 135. 



Note Q. 

The Douglas, like a stricken deer, 
Disown'd by every noble peer. — P. 53. 

The exiled state of this powerful race is not exaggerated in this 
and subsequent passages. The hatred of James against the race 
of Douglas was so inveterate, that numerous as their allies were, 
and disregarded as the regal authority had usually been in similar 
cases, their nearest friends, even in the most remote part of Scot 
land, durst not entertain them, unless under the strictest and clos- 
est disguise. James Douglas, son of the banished Earl of Angus, 
afterwards well known by the title of Earl of Morton, lurked, 
during the exile of his family, in the north of Scotland, under the 
assumed name of James Innes, otherwise James the Grieve, (i. e. 
Reve or Bailiff.) " And as he bore the name," says Godscroft, 
" so did he also execute the office of a grieve or overseer of the 
lands and rents, the corn and cattle of him with whom he lived." 
From the habits of frugality and observation, which he acquired 
in his humble situation, the historian traces that intimate acquaint- 
ance with popular character, which enabled him to rise so high in 
the state, and that honourable economy by which he repaired and 
established the shattered estates of Angus and Morton. — History 
of the House of Douglas, Edinburgh, 1743, vol. ii. p. 160 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 221 

Note R. 

For Tim-man forged by fairy lore.—?. 56. 

Archibald, the third Earl of Douglas, was so unfortunate in 
all his enterprises, that he acquired the epithet of Tine-man, 
because he lined, or lost, his followers in every battle which he 
fought. He was vanquished, as every reader must remember, in 
the bloody battle of Homildon-hill, near Wooler, where he himself 
lost an eye, and was made prisoner by Hotspur. He was no less 
unfortunate when allied with Percy, being wounded and taken at 
the battle of Shrewsbury. He was so unsuccessful in an attempt 
to besiege Roxburgh Castle, that it was called the Foul Raid, or 
disgraceful expedition. His ill fortune left him indeed at the battle 
of Beauge, in France ; but it was only to return with double 
emphasis at the subsequent action of Vernoil, the last and most 
unlucky of his encounters, in which he fell, with the flower of the 
Scottish chivalry, then serving as auxiliaries in France, and about 
two thousand common soldiers, a. d. 1424. 

Note S. 

Bid, sdf-u7iscabbarded, foreshow 
The footstep of a secret foe. — P. 56. 

The ancient warriors, whose hope and confidence rested chiefly 
in their blades, were accustomed to deduce omens from them, 
especially from such as were supposed to have been fabricated by 
enchanted skill, of which we have various instances in the romances 
and legends of the time. The wonderful sword Skofnung, wield- 
ed by the celebrated Hrolf Kraka, was of this description. It was 
deposited in the tomb of the monarch at his death, and taken from 
thence by Skeggo, a celebrated pirate, who bestowed it upon his 
son-in-law, Kormak, with the following curious directions : " 'The 
manner of using it will appear strange to you. A small bag is 
attached to it, which take heed not to violate. Let not the rays 
of the sun touch the upper part of the handle, nor unsheathe it, 
unless thou art ready for battle. But when thou comest to the 
place of fight, go aside from the rest, grasp and extend the sword, 
and breathe upon it. Then a small worm will creep out of the 
handle ; lower the handle, that he may more easily return into it.' 
Kormak, after having received the sword, returned home to his 
mother. He showed the sword, and attempted to draw it, as unne- 



222 APPENDIX TO 

cessarily as ineffectually, for he could not pluck it out of the sheath. 
His mother, Dalla, exclaimed, ' Do not despise the counsel given 
to thee, my son.' Kormak, however, repeating his efforts, pressed 
down the handle with his feet, and tore off the hag, when Skofnung 
emitted a hollow groan ; but still he could not unsheathe the sword. 
Kormak then went out with Bessus, whom he had challenged to 
fight with him, and drew apart at the place of combat. He sat 
down upon the ground, and ungirding the sword, which he bore 
above his vestments, did not remember to shield the hilt from the 
rays of the sun. In vain he endeavoured to draw it, till he placed 
his foot against the hilt ; then the worm issued from it. But Kor- 
mak did not rightly handle the weapon, in consequence whereof 
good fortune deserted it. As he unsheathed Skofnung, it emitted 
a hollow murmur." — Bartholinide Causis Contemptce a Danis adhuc 
GentUibus Mortis, Libri Tres. Hafnice, 1689, 4to, p. 574. 

To the history of this sentient and prescient weapon, I beg leav« 
to add, from memory, the follow^ legend, for which I cannot 
produce any better authority. A young nobleman, of high hopes 
and fortune, chanced to lose his way in the town which he inha- 
bited, the capital, if I mistake not, of a German province. He had 
accidentally involved himself among the narrow and winding 
streets of a suburb, inhabited by the lowest order of the people, and 
an approaching thunder shower determined him to ask a short 
refuge in the most decent habitation that was near him. He 
knocked at the door, which was opened by a tall man, of a grisly 
and ferocious aspect, and sordid dress. The stranger was readily 
ushered to a chamber, ^where swords, scourges, and machines, 
which seemed to be implements of torture, were suspended on the 
wall. One of these swords dropped from its scabbard, as the noble- 
man, after a moment's hesitation, crossed the threshold. His host 
immediately stared at him with such a marked expression, that 
the young man could not help demanding his name and business, 
and the meaning of his looking at him so fixedly. " I am," an- 
swered the man, " the public executioner of this city ; and the in- 
cident you have observed is a sure augury that I shall, in discharge 
of my duty, one day cut off your head with the weapon which has 
just now spontaneously unsheathed itself." The nobleman lost no 
time in leaving his place of refuge ; but, engaging in some of the 
plots of the period, was shortly after decapitated by that very man 
and instrument. 

Lord Lovat is said, by the author of the Letters from Scotland, 
to have affirmed, that a number of swords that hung up in the hall 
of the mansion-house, leaped of themselves out of the scabbard at 
the instant he was born. The story passed current among his clan, 
but, like that of the story I have just quoted, proved an unfortunate 
omen.— 'Letters from Scotland, vol. ii. p. 214. 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 223 

Note T. 

Those thrilling sounds, that call tlie might 
Qf old Clan-Alpineto the fight— P. 58. 

The connoisseurs in pipe-music affect to discover in a well-com- 
posed pibroch, the imitative sounds of march, conflict, flight, pur- 
suit, and all the " current of a heady fight." To this opinion Or. 
Beattie has given his suffrage, in the following elegant passage : — 
** A pibroch is a species of tune, peculiar, I think, to the Highlands 
and Western Isles of Scotland. It is performed on a bag-pipe, 
and differs totally from all other music. Its rhythm is so irregular, 
and its notes, especially in the quick movement, so mixed and 
huddled together, that a stranger finds it impossible to reconcile his 
ear to it, so as to perceive its modulation. Some of these pibrochs, 
being intended to represent a battle, begin with a grave motion, 
resembling a march ; then gradually quicken into the onset ; run 
off with noisy confusion, and turbulent rapidity, to imitate the con- 
flict and pursuit ; then swell into a few flourishes of triumphant 
joy ; and perhaps close with the wild and slow wailings of a funeral 
procession." — Essay on Laughter and Ludicrous Composition, chap, 
iii. Note. 

Note U. 

Eoderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho .' ieroe I — P. 59. 

Besides his ordinary name and surname, which were chiefly 
used in the intercourse with the Lowlands, every Highland chief 
had an epithet expressive of his patriarchal dignity as head of the 
clan, and which was common to all his predecessors and successors, 
as Pharaoh to the kings of Egypt, or Arsaces to those of Parthia. 
This name was usually a patronymic, expressive of his descent from 
the founder of the family. Thus the Duke of Argyle is called 
MacCallum More, or the son of Colin the Great Sometimes, 
however, it is derived from armorial distinctions, or the memory of 
some great feat ; thus Lord Seaforth, as chief of the Mackenzies, 
ar Clan-Kennet, bears the epithet of Caber-fae, or Buck's Head, 
as representative of Colin Fitzgerald, founder of the family, who 
saved the Scottish king, when endangered by a stag. But besides 
this title, which belonged to his office and dignity, the chieftain had 
usually another peculiar to himself, which distinguished him from 
the chieftains of the same race. This was sometimes derived from 
complexion, as dhu or roy ; sometimes from size, as beg or mores 



224 APPENDIX TO 

at other times, from some peculiar exploit, or from some peculiarity 
of habit or appearance. The line of the text therefore signifies, 
Black Roderick, the descendant of Alpine. 
The song itself is intended as an imitation of the jorrams, or 
boat songs, of the Highlanders, which were usually composed in 
honour of a favourite chief. They are so adapted as to keep time 
with the sweep of the oars, and it is easy to distinguish between 
those intended to be sung to the oars of a galley, where the stroke 
is lengthened and doubled, as it were, and those which were timed 
to the rowers of an ordinary boat. 



Note V. 
The best of Loch Lomond lie dead on her side.—V. 60. 

The Lennox, as the district is called, which encircles the lower 
extremity of Loch Lomond, was peculiarly exposed to the incur- 
sions of the mountaineers, who inhabited the inaccessible fastnesses 
at the upper end of the lake, and the neighbouring district of Loch 
Katrine. These were often marked by circumstances of great 
ferocity, of which the noted conflict of Glen-fruin is a celebrated 
instance. This was a clan-battle, in which the Macgregors, headed 
by Allaster Macgregor, chief of the clan, encountered the sept of 
Colquhouns, commanded by Sir Humphry Colquhoun of Luss. It 
is on all hands allowed that the action was desperately fought, and 
that the Colquhouns were defeated with slaughter, leaving two hun- 
dred of their name dead upon the field. But popular tradition has 
added other horrors to the tale. It is said, that Sir Humphry 
Colquhoun, who was on horseback, escaped to the castle of Bene- 
chra, or Banochar, and was next day dragged out and murdered by 
the victorious Macgregors in cold blood. Buchanan of Auchmar, 
however, speaks of his slaughter as a subsequent event, and as per- 
petrated by the Macfarlanes. Again, it is reported, that the Mac- 
gregors murdered a number of youths, whom report of the intended 
battle had brought to be spectators, and whom the Colquhouns, 
anxious for their safety, had shut up in a barn to be out of danger. 
One account of the Macgregors denies this circumstance entirely ; 
another aseribea it to the savage and bloodthirsty disposition of a 
single individual, the bastard brother of the Laird of Macgregor, 
who amused himself with this second massacre of the innocents, in 
express disobedience to the chief, by whom he was left their guar- 
dian during the pursuit of the Colquhouns. It is added, that Mac- 
gregor bitterly lamented this atrocious action, and prophesied the 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 225 

rain which it must bring upon their ancient clan. The following 
account of the conflict, which is indeed drawn up by a friend of the 
Clan-Gregor, is altogether silent on the murder of the youths. 
" In the spring of the year 1602, there happened great dissensions 
and troubles between the Laird of Luss, chief of the Colquhouns, 
and Alexander, Laird of Macgregor. The original of these quarrels 
proceeded from injuries and provocations mutually given and re- 
ceived, not long before. Macgregor, however, wanting to have 
them ended in friendly conferences, marched at the head of two 
hundred of his clan to Leven, which borders on Luss, his country, 
with a new of settling matters by the mediation of friends : but 
Luss had no such intentions, and projected his measures with a 
different view ; for he privately drew together a body of 300 horse 
and 500 foot, composed partly of his own clan and their followers, 
and partly of the Buchanans, his neighbours, and resolved to cut 
off Macgregor and his party to a man, in case the issue of the con- 
ference did not answer his inclination. But matters fell otherwise 
than he expected; and though Macgregor had previous information 
of his insidious design, yet, dissembling his resentment, he kept the 
appointment, and parted good friends in appearance. 

," No sooner was he gone, than Luss, thinking to surprise him 
and his party in full security, and without any dread or apprehen- 
sion of his treachery, followed with all speed, and came up with him 
at a place called Glenfroon. Macgregor, upon the alarm, divided 
his men into two parties, the greatest part whereof he commanded 
himself, and the other he committed to the care of his brother John, 
who, by his orders, led them about another way, and attacked the 
Colquhouns in flank. Here, it was fought with great bravery on 
both sides for a considerable time ; and, notwithstanding the vast 
disproportion of numbers, Macgregor, in the end, obtained an abso- 
lute victory. So great was the rout, that 200 of the Colquhouns 
were left dead upon the spot, most of the leading men were killed. 
and a multitude of prisoners taken. But what seemed mosi; sur- 
prising and incredible in this defeat, was, that none of the Mac- 
gregors were missing, except John, the laird's brother, and one 
common fellow, though indeed many of them were wounded." — 
Professor Ross's History of the Family of Sutherland, 1631. 

The consequences of the battle of Glen-fruin were very calami- 
tous to the family of Macgregor, who had already been considered 
as an unruly clan. The widows of the slain Colquhouns, sixty, it 
is said, in number, appeared in doleful procession bofore the king 
at Stirling, each riding upon a white palfrey, and bearing in her 
hand the bloody shirt of her husband displayed upon a pike. James 
VI. was so much moved by the complaints of this "choir of mourn- 
ing dames," that he let loose his vengeance against the Macgregors, 



226 APPENDIX TO 

without either bounds or moderation. The very name of the clan 
was proscribed, and those by whom it had been borne were given 
up to sword and fire, and absolutely hunted down by bloodhounds 
like wild beasts. Argyle and the Campbells, on the one hand, 
Montrose, with the Grahames and Buchanans, on the other, are 
said to have been the chief instruments in suppressing this devoted 
clan. The Laird of Macgregor surrendered to the former, on con- 
dition that he would take him out of Scottish ground. But, to use 
Birrel's expression, he kept " a Highlandman's promise ;" and, 
although he fulfilled his word to the letter, by carrying him as far 
as Berwick, he afterwards brought him back to Edinburgh, where 
he was executed with eighteen of his clan. — Birrel's Diary, 2d 
Oct. 1603. The clan Gregor being thus driven to utter despair, 
seem to have renounced the laws from the benefit of which they 
were excluded, and their depredations produced new acts of coun- 
cil, confirming the severity of their proscription, which had only 
the effect of rendering them still more united and desperate. It is 
a most extraordinary proof of the ardent and invincible spirit of 
clanship, that, notwithstanding the repeated proscriptions provi- 
dently ordained by the legislature, " for the timeous preventing the 
disorders and oppression that may fall out by the said name and 
clan of Macgregors, and their followers," they were, in 1715 and 
1745, a potent clan, and continue to subsist as a distinct and nu- 
merous race. 



Note W. 



-The King's vindictive pride 



Boasts to have tamed the Border-side.— P. 67. 

In 1529, James V. made a convention at Edinburgh, for the 
purpose of considering the best mode of quelling the Border rob- 
bers, who, during the license of his minority, and the troubles 
which followed, had committed many exorbitances. Accordingly 
he assembled a flying army of ten thousand men, consisting of his 
principal nobility and their followers, who were directed to bring 
their hawks and dogs with them, that the monarch might refresh 
himself with sport during the intervals of military execution. With 
this array he swept through Ettrick Forest, where he hanged over 
the gate of his own castle, Piers Cockburn of Henderland, who 
had prepared, according to tradition, a feast for his reception. He 
caused Adam Scott of Tushielaw also to be executed, who was 
distinguished by the title of King of the Border. But the most 
noted victim of justice, during that expedition, was John Arm- 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 227 

strong of Gilnockie, famous in Scottish song, who, confiding in his 
own supposed innocence, met the King, with a retinue of thirty-six 
persons, all of whom were hanged at Carlenrig, near the source of 
the Teviot. The effect of this severity was such, that, as the vulgar 
expressed it, " the rush-hush kept the cow," and, " thereafter was 
great peace and rest a long time, wherethrough the King had great 
profit ; for he had ten thousand sheep going in the Ettrick Forest 
in keeping hy Andrew Bell, who made the King as good count of 
them as they had gone in the bounds of Fife."— Pitscottie's 
History, p. 153. 



Note X. 

What grace for Highland chiefs, judge ye, 
By fate of Border chivalry.— P. 67. 

James was, in fact, equally attentive to restrain rapine and 
feudal oppression in every part of his dominions. " The king past 
to the Isles, and there held justice courts, and punished both thief 
and traitor according to their demerit. And also he caused great 
men to show their holdings, wherethrough he found many of the 
said lands in non-entry ; the which he confiscate and brought home 
to his own use, and afterwards annexed them to the crown, as ye 
shall hear. Syne brought many of the great men of the isles cap- 
tive with him, such as Mudyart, M'ConneL M'Loyd of the Lewes, 
M'Neil, M'Lane, M'Intosh, John Mudyart, M'Kay, M'Kenzie, 
with many other that I cannot rehearse at this time. Some of them 
he put in ward and some in court, and from some he took pledges 
for good rule in time coming. So he brought the isles both north 
and south, in good rule and peace ; wherefore he had great profit, 
service, and obedience of people a long time thereafter ; and as 
long as he had the heads of the country in subjection, they lived 
in great peace and rest, and there was great riches and policy by 
the king's justice." — Pitscottie, p. 152. 



Note Y. 



-Pity 'twere 



Such cheek should feel the midnight air /-—P. 73. 

Hardihood was in every respect so essential to the character of 
a Highlander, that the reproach of effeminacy was the most bitter 
which could be thrown upon him. Yet it was sometimes hazarded 



228 APPENDIX TO 

on what we might presume to think slight grounds. It is reported 
of old Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, when upwards of seventy, 
that he was surprised by night on a hunting or military expedition. 
He wrapped him in his plaid, and lay contentedly down upon the 
snow, with which the ground happened to be covered. Among his 
attendants, who were preparing to take their rest in the same man- 
ner, he observed that one of his grandsons, for his better accom- 
modation, had rolled a large snow-ball, and placed it below his head. 
The wrath of the ancient chief was awakened by a symptom of what 
he conceived to be degenerate luxury. " Out upon thee," said he, 
kicking the frozen bolster from the head which it supported, " art 
thou so effeminate as to need a pillow ?" The officer of engineers, 
whose curious letters from the Highlands have been more than once 
quoted, tells a similar story of Macdonald of Keppoch, and subjoins 
the following remarks :— " This and many other stories are roman- 
tick ; but there is one thing, that at first thought might seem very 
romantick, of which I have been credibly assured, that when the 
Highlanders are constrained to lie among the hills, in cold dry windy 
weather, they sometimes soak the plaid in some river or burn, (i. & 
brook, ) and then holding up a corner of it a little above their head9, 
they turn themselves round and round, till they are enveloped by 
the whole mantle. They then lay themselves down on the heath, 
upon the leeward side of some hill, where the wet and the warmth 
of their bodies make a steam, like that of a boiling kettle. The 
wet, they say, keeps them warm by thickening the stuff, and keep- 
ing the wind from penetrating. I must confess I should have been 
apt to question this fact, had I not frequently seen them wet from 
morning to night, and, even at the beginning of the rain, not so 
much as stir a few yards to shelter, but continue in it without ne- 
cessity, till they were, as we say, wet through and through. And 
that is soon effected by the looseness and spunginess of the plaid- 
ing ; but the bonnet is frequently taken off, and wrung like a dish- 
clout, and then put on again. They have been accustomed from 
their infancy to be often wet, and to take the water like spaniels, 
and this is become a second nature, and can scarcely be called a 
hardship to them, insomuch that I used to say, they seemed to be 
of the duck kind, and to love water as well. Though I never saw 
this preparation for sleep in windy weather, yet, setting out early 
in a morning from one of the huts, I have seen the marks of their 
lodging, where the ground has been free from rime or snow, which 
remained all round the spot where they had lain." — Letters from 
Scotland, Lond. 1754, 8vo, ii. p. 108. 






THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 229 

Note Z. 
His henchman came. — P. 73. 



" This officer is a sort of secretary, and is to be ready, upon all 
occasions, to venture his life in defence of his master ; and at 
drinking-bouts he stands behind his seat, at his haunch, from whence 
his title is derived, and watches the conversation, to see if any one 
offends his patron. An English officer being in company with a 
certain chieftain, and several other Highland gentlemen, near Kil- 
lichumen, had an argument with the great man ; and both being 
well warmed with iisky, i at last the dispute grew very hot. A youth 
who was henchman, not understanding one word of English, ima- 
gined his chief was insulted, and thereupon drew his pistol from his 
side, and snapped it at the officer's head : but the pistol missed fire, 
otherwise it is more than probable he might have suffered death 
from the hand of that little vermin. But it is very disagreeable to 
an Englishman over a bottle, with the Highlanders, to see every one 
of them have his gilly, that is, his servant, standing behind him all 
the while, let what will be the subject of conversation." — Letters 
from Scotland, ii. 159. 



Note 2 A. 

And while the Fiery Cross glanced, like a meteor, round.— F. 78. 

When a chieftain designed to summon his clan, upon any sudden 
or important emergency, he slew a goat, and making a cross of any 
light wood, seared its extremities in the fire, and extinguished them 
in the blood of the animal. This was called the Fiery Cross, also 
Crean Tarigh, or the Cross of Shame, because disobedience to what 
the symbol implied, inferred, infamy. It was delivered to a swift 
and trusty messenger, who ran full speed with it to the next ham- 
let, where he presented it to the principal person, with a single 
word, implying the place of rendezvous. He who received the sym- 
bol was bound to send it forward, with equal dispatch, to the next 
village ; and thus it passed with incredible celerity through all the 
district which owed allegiance to the chief, and also among his 
allies and neighbours, if the danger was common to them. At sight 
of the Fiery Cross, every man, from sixteen years old to sixty, ca- 



1 [Whisky.] 



230 APPENDIX TO 

pable of bearing arms, was obliged instantly to repair, in his best 
arms and accoutrements, to the place of rendezvous. He who failed 
to appear suffered the extremities of fire and sword, which were 
emblematically denounced to the disobedient by the bloody and 
burnt marks upon this warlike signal. During the civil war of 
1745-6, the Fiery Cross often made its circuit ; and upon one occa- 
sion it passed through the whole district of Breadalbane, a tract of 
thirty-two miles, in three hours. The late Alexander Stewart, 
Esq. of Invernahyle, described to me his having sent round the 
Fiery Cross through the district of Appine, during the same com- 
motion. The coast was threatened by a descent from two English 
frigates, and the flower of the young men were with the army of 
Prince Charles Edward, then in England ; yet the summons was 
so effectual, that even old age and childhood obeyed it ; and a force 
was collected in a few hours, so numerous and so enthusiastic, that 
all attempt at the intended diversion upon the country of the absent 
warriors was in prudence abandoned, as desperate. 

This practice, like some others, is common to the Highlanders 
with the ancient Scandinavians, as will appear by the following 
extract from Olaus Magnus : — 

" When the enemy is upon the sea-coast, or within the limits of 
northern kingdomes, then presently, by the command of the prin- 
cipal governours, with the counsel and consent of the old soldiers, 
who are notably skilled in such like business, a staff of three hands 
length, in the common sight of them all, is carried, by the speedy 
running of some active young man, unto that village or city, with 
this command, — that on the 3. 4. or 8. day, one, two, or three, or 
else every man in particular, from 15 years old, shall come with his 
arms, and expenses for ten or twenty days, upon pain that his or 
their houses shall be burnt, (which is intimated by the burning of 
the staff,) or else the master to be hanged, (which is signified by the 
cord tied to it,) to appear speedily on such a bank, or field, or val- 
ley, to hear the cause he is called, and to hear orders from the 
said provincial governours what he shall do. Wherefore that mes- 
senger, swifter than any post or waggon, having done his commis- 
sion, comes slowly back again, bringing a token with him that he 
hath done all legally ; and every moment one or another runs to 

every village, and tells those places what they must do." 

" The messengers, therefore, of the footmen, that are to give warn- 
ing to the people to meet for the battail, run fiercely and swiftly ; 
for no snow, no rain, nor heat can stop them, nor night hold them ; 
but they will soon run the race they undertake. The first messen- 
ger tells it to the next village, and that to the next ; and so the hub- 
bub runs all over till they all know it in that stift or territory, 
where, when, and wherefore they must meet." — Olaus Magnus' 



THE LADY OK THE LAKE. 231 

History of the Goths, englished by J. S. Lond. 1658, book iv. 
chap. 3, 4. 



Note 2 B. 

That monk of savage form and face.— V. 80. 

The state of religion in the middle ages afforded considerable 
facilities for those whose mode of life excluded them from regular 
worship, to secure, nevertheless, the ghostly assistance of confes- 
sors, perfectly willing to adapt the nature of their doctrine to the 
necessities and peculiar circumstances of their flock. Robin Hood, 
it is well known, had his celebrated domestic chaplain Friar Tuck, 
And that same curtal friar was probably matched in manners and 
appearance by the ghostly fathers of the Tynedale robbers, who are 
thus described in an excommunication fulminated against their pa- 
trons by Richard Fox, Bishop of Durham, tempore Henrici VIII. 
"We have further understood, that there are many chaplains in 
the said territories of Tynedale and Redesdale, who are public and 
open maintainers of concubinage, irregular, suspended, excommu- 
nicated, and interdicted persons, and withal so utterly ignorant of 
letters, that it has been found by those who objected this to them, 
that there were some who, having celebrated mass for ten years, 
were still unable to read the sacramental service. We have also 
understood there are persons among them who, although not or- 
dained, do take upon them the offices of priesthood ; and, in con- 
tempt of God, celebrate the divine and sacred rites, and administer 
the sacraments, not only in sacred and dedicated places, but in those 
which are prophane and interdicted, and most wretchedly ruinous, 
they themselves being attired in ragged, torn, and most filthy vest- 
ments, altogether unfit to be used in divine, or even in temporal 
offices. The which said chaplains do administer sacraments and 
sacramental rites to the aforesaid manifest and infamous thieves, 
robbers, depredators, receivers of stolen goods, and plunderers, and 
that without restitution, or intention to restore, as evinced by the 
act ; and do also openly admit them to the rites of ecclesiastical 
sepulchre, without exacting security for restitution, although they 
are prohibited from doing so by the sacred canons, as well as by the 
institutes of the saints and fathers. All which infers the heavy 
peril of their own souls, and is a pernicious example to the other 
believers in Christ, as well as no slight, but an aggravated injury, 
to the numbers despoiled and plundered of their goods, gear, herds, 
and chattels." 1 

i The Monition against the Robbers of Tynedale and Redesdale, 



232 APPENDIX TO 

To this lively and picturesque description of the confessors and 
churchmen of predatory tribes, there may be added some curious 
particulars respecting the priests attached to the several septs of 
native Irish, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. These friars 
had indeed to plead, that the incursions, which they not only par- 
doned, but even encouraged, were made upon those hostile to them, 
as well in religion as from national antipathy ; but by Protestant 
writers they are uniformly alleged to be the chief instruments of 
Irish insurrection, the very well-spring of all rebellion towards the 
English government. Lithgow, the Scottish traveller, declares the 
Irish wood-kerne, or predatory tribes, to be but the hounds of their 
hunting priests, who directed their incursions by their pleasure, 
partly for sustenance, partly to gratify animosity, partly to foment 
general division, and always for the better security and easier do- 
mination of the friars. * Derrick, the liveliness and minuteness of 
whose descriptions may frequently apologize for his doggerel verses, 
after describing an Irish feast, and the encouragement given, by 
the songs of the bards, to its termination in an incursion upon the 
parts of the country more immediately under the dominion of the 
English, records the no less powerful arguments used by the friar 
to excite their animosity : — 

" And more t' augment the flame, 

and rancour of their harte, 
The frier, of his counsells vile., 

to rebelles doth imparte, - 
Affirming that it is 

an almose deede to God, 
To make the English subjectcs taste 

the Irish rebells' rodde. 
To spoile, to kill, to burne, 

this frier's counsell is ; 
And for the doing of the same, 

he warrantes heavenlie blisse. 
He tells a holie tale ; 

the white he tournes to blacke ; 
And through the pardons in his male, 

he workes a knavishe knacke." 



with which I was favoured by my friend, Mr. Surtees of Mainsforth, 
may be found in the original Latin, in the Appendix to the Intro- 
duction to the Border Minstrelsy, No. VII., vol. i. p. 274. New 
Edition. 
J Lithgow's Travels, first edit. p. 431. 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 233 

The wreckful invasion of a part of the English pale is then de- 
scribed with some spirit ; the burning of houses, driving off cattle, 
and all pertaining to such predatory inroads, are illustrated by a 
rude cut. The defeat of the Irish, by a party of English soldiers 
from the next garrison, is then commemorated, and in like manner 
adorned with an engraving, in which the friar is exhibited mourn- 
ing over the slain chieftain ; or, as the rubric expresses it, 

" The frier then, that treacherous knave, with ough ough-hone 

lament, 
To see his cousin Devill's-son to have so foul event." 

The matter is handled at great length in the text, of which the 
following verses are more than sufficient sample : — 

" The frier seyng this, 

lamentes that lucklesse parte, 
And curseth to the pitte of hell 

the death man's sturdy harte : 
Yet for to quight them with 

the frier taketh paine, 
For all the synnes that ere he did 

remission to obtaine. 
And therefore serves his booke, 

the candell and the bell ; 
But thinke you that such apishe toies 

bring damned souls from hell ? 
It 'longs not to my parte 

infernall things to knowe ; 
But I believe till later daie, 

thei rise not from belowe. 
Yet hope that friers give 

to this rebellious rout, 
If that their souls should chaunce in hell, 

to bring them quicklie out, 
Doeth make them lead such lives, 

as neither God nor man, 
Without revenge for their desartes, 

permitte or suffer can. 
Thus friers are the cause, 

the fountain, and the spring, 
Of hurleburlcs in this lande, 

of eche unhappie thing. 
Thei cause them to rebell 

against their soveraigne quene, 



234 APPENDIX TO 

And through rebellion often tyme3, 

their lives doe vanishe clene. 
So as by friers meanes 

in whom all follie swim me, 
The Irishe karne doe often lose 

the life, with hedde and limme." 1 

As the Irish tribes, and those of the Scottish Highlanders, are 
much more intimately allied, by language, manners, dress, and 
customs, than the antiquaries of either country have been willing 
to admit, I flatter myself I have here produced a strong warrant for 
the character sketched in the text. The following picture, though 
of a different kind, serves to establish the existence of ascetic reli- 
gionists, to a comparatively late period, in the Highlands and West- 
ern Isles. There is a great deal of simplicity in the description, 
for which, as for much similar information, I am obliged to Dr. John 
Martin, who visited the Hebrides at the suggestion of Sir Robert 
Sibbald, a Scottish antiquarian of eminence, and early in the eight- 
eenth century published a description of them/which procured him 
admission into the Royal Society. He died in London about 1/19. 
His work is a strange mixture of learning, observation, and gross 
credulity. 

"I remember," says this author, "I have seen an old lay-capu- 
chin here, (in the island of Benbecula,) called in their language 
Brahir-bocht, that is, Poor Brother ; which is literally true ; for he 
answers this character, having nothing but what is given him ; he 
holds himself fully satisfied with food and rayment, and lives in as 
great simplicity as any of his order ; his diet is very mean, and he 
drinks only fair water ; his habit is no less mortifying than that of 
his brethren elsewhere : he wears a short coat, which comes no 
farther than his middle, with narrow sleeves like a waistcoat : he 
wears a plad above it, girt about the middle, which reaches to his 
knee : the plad is fastened on his breast with a wooden pin, his 
neck bare, and his feet often so too ; he wears a hat for ornament, 
and the string about it is a bit of a fisher's line, made of horse-hair. 
This plad he wears instead of a gown worn by those of his order in 
other countries. I told him he wanted the flaxen girdle that men 
of his order usually wear : he answered me, that he wore a leathern 



1 This curious picture of Ireland was inserted by the author in 
the republication of Somers' Tracts, vol. i. in which the plates have 
been also inserted, from the only impressions known to exist, be- 
longing to the copy in the Advocates' Library. See Somers' Tracts, 
vol. i. p. 501, 594. 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE, 235 

one, which was the same thing. Upon the matter, if he is spoke to 
when at meat, he answers again ; which is contrary to the custom 
of his order. This poor man frequently diverts himself with angling 
of trouts ; he lies upon straw, and has no bell (as others have) to 
call him to his devotions, but only his conscience, as he told me." 
— Martin's Description of the Western Highlands, p. 82. 



Note 2 C. 
Of Brians Mrth strange tales ivere told.—V. 81. 

The legend which follows is not of the author's invention. It is 
possible he may differ from modern critics, in supposing that the 
records of human superstition, if peculiar to, and characteristic of, 
the country in which the scene is laid, are a legitimate subject of 
poetry. He gives, however, a ready assent to the narrower pro- 
position which condemns all attempts of an irregular and disordered 
fancy to excite terror, by accumulating a train of fantastic and 
incoherent horrors, whether borrowed from all countries, and 
patched upon a narrative belonging to one which knew them not, 
or derived from the author's own imagination. In the present case, 
therefore, I appeal to the record which I have transcribed, with the 
variation of a very few words from the geographical collections 
made by the Laird of Macfarlane. I know not whether it be ne- 
cessary to remark, that the miscellaneous concourse of youths and 
maidens on the night and on the spot where the miracle is said to 
have taken place, might, even in a credulous age, have somewhat 
diminished the wonder which accompanied the conception of Gilli- 
Doir-Magrevollich. 

" There is bot two myles from Inverloghie, the church of Kilma- 
lee, in Loghyeld. In ancient tymes there was ane church builded 
upon ane bill, which was above this church^which doeth now stand 
in this toune ; and ancient men doeth say, that there was a battell 
foughten on ane litle hill not the tenth part of a myle from this 
church, be certaine men which they did not know what they were. 
And long tyme thereafter, certane herds of that toune, and of the 
next toune, called Unnatt, both wenches and youthes, did on a tyme 
conveen with others on that hill ; and the day being somewhat cold, 
did gather the bones of the dead men that were slayne long tyme 
before in that place, and did make a fire to warm them. At last 
they did all remove from the fire, except one maid or wench, which 
was verie cold, and she did remaine there for a space. She being 
quyetlie her alone, without anie other companie, took up her cloaths 
above her knees, or thereby, to warm her ; a wind did come and 



236 APPENDIX TO 

caste the ashes upon her, and she was conceived of ane man-chyld. 
Severall tymes thereafter she was verie sick, and at last she was 
knowne to be with chyld. And then her parents did ask at her the 
matter heiroff, which the wench could not weel answer which way 
to satisfie them. At last she resolved them with ane answer. As 
fortune fell upon her concerning this marvellous miracle, the chyld 
being borne, his name was called Gili-doir Maghrevollich, that is 
to say, the Black Child, Son to the Bones. So called, his grand- 
father sent him to schooll, and so he was a good schollar, and god- 
lie. He did build this church which doeth now stand in Lochyeld, 
called Kilmalie." — Macfarlane, ut supra, ii. 188. 



iSToTE 2 D. 

the virgin snood. — P. 82. 

The snood, or riband, with which a Scottish lass braided her 
hair, had an emblematical signification, and applied to her maiden 
character. It was exchanged for the curch, toy, or coif, when she 
passed, by marriage, into the matron state. But if the damsel was 
so unfortunate as to lose pretensions to the name of maiden, with- 
out gaining a right to that of matron, she was neither permitted to 
use the snood, nor advanced to the graver dignity of the curch. In 
old Scottish songs there occur many sly allusions to such misfor- 
tune ; as in the old words to the popular tune of " Ower the muir 
amang the heather." 

" Down amang the broom, the broom, 

Down amang the broom, my dearie, 
The lassie lost her silken snood, 

That gard her greet till she was wearie." 



Note 2 E. 

The desert gave him visions wild, 

Such as might suit the Spectre's child.— P. 83. 

In adopting the legend concerning the birth of the Founder of 
the Church of Kilmalie, the author has endeavoured to trace the 
effects which such a belief was likely to produce, in a barbarous age, 
on the person to whom it related. It seems likely that he must 
have become a fanatic or an impostor, or that mixture of both which 
forms a more frequent character than either of them, as existing 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 237 

separately. In truth, mad persons are frequently more anxious to 
impress upon others a faith in their visions, than they are them- 
selves confirmed in their reality; as, on the other hand, it is diffi- 
cult for the most cool-headed impostor long to personate an enthu- 
siast, without in some degree believing what he is so eager to have 
believed. It was a natural attribute of such a character as the 
supposed hermit, that he should credit the numerous superstitions 
with which the minds of ordinary Highlanders are almost always 
imbued. A few of these are slightly alluded to in this stanza. The 
River Demon, or River-horse, for it is that form which he com- 
monly assumes, is the Kelpy of the Lowlands, an evil and mali- 
cious spirit, delighting to forebode and to witness calamity. He 
frequents most Highland lakes and rivers ; and one of his most 
memorable exploits was performed upon the banks of Loch Ven- 
nachar, in the very district which forms the scene of our action : 
it consisted in the destruction of a funejal procession, with all its 
attendants. The " noontide hag," called in Gaelic Glas-lich, a 
tall, emaciated, gigantic female figure, is supposed in particular to 
haunt the district of Knoidart. A goblin dressed in antique ar- 
mour, and having one hand covered with blood, called, from that 
circumstance, Lhatn-dearg, or Red-hand, is a tenant of the forests 
of Glenmore and Rothiemurcus. Other spirits of the desert, all 
frightful in shape and malignant in disposition, are believed to fre- 
quent different mountains and glens of the Highlands, where any 
unusual appearance, produced by mist, or the strange lights that 
are sometimes thrown upon particular objects, never fails to pre- 
sent an apparition to the imagination of the solitary and melancholy 
mountaineer. 



Note 2 F. 

Tte fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream.—V. 84. 

Most great families in the Highlands were supposed to have a 
tutelar, or rather a domestic spirit, attached to them, who took an 
interest in their prosperity, and intimated, by its wailings, any 
approaching disaster. That of Grant of Grant was called May 
Moullach, and. appeared in the form of a girl, who had her arm 
covered with hair. Grant of Rothiemurcus had an attendant called 
Bodach-an-dun, or the Ghost of the Hill ; and many other exam- 
ples might be mentioned. The Ban-Schie implies a female Fairy, 
whose lamentations were often supposed to precede the death of a 
chieftain of particular families. When she is visible, it is in the 
form of an old woman, with a blue mantle and streaming hair. A 



238 APPENDIX TO 

superstition of the same kind is, I believe, universally received by 
the inferior ranks of the native Irish. 

The death of the head of a Highland family is also sometimes 
supposed to be announced by a chain of lights of different colours, 
called Dr'eug, or death of the Druid. The direction which it takes, 
marks the place of the funeral. [See the Essay on Fairy Supersti- 
tions in the Border Minstrelsy.] 



Note 2 G. 

Sounds, too, had come in midnight blast, 

Of charging steeds, careering fast 

Along Benharrow's shingly side, 

Where mortal horseman ne'er might ride.—V. 34. 

A presage of the kind alluded to in the text, is still believed to 
announce death to the ancient Highland family of M'Lean of Loch- 
buy. The spirit of an ancestor slain in battle is heard to gallop 
along a stony bank, and then to ride thrice around the family resi- 
dence, ringing his fairy bridle, and thus intimating the approaching 
calamity. How easily the eye as well as the ear may be deceived 
upon such occasions, is evident from the stories of armies in the air, 
and other spectral phenomena with which history abounds. Such 
an apparition is said to have been witnessed upon the side of South- 
fell mountain, between Penrith and Keswick, upon the 23d June, 
1744, by two persons, William Lancaster of Blakehills, and Daniel 
Stricket his servant, whose attestation to the fact, with a full ac- 
count of the apparition, dated the 21st July, 1745, is printed in 
Clarke's Survey of the Lakes. The apparition consisted of several 
troops of horse moving in regular order, with a steady rapid motion, 
making a curved sweep around the fell, and seeming to the specta- 
tors to disappear over the ridge of the -mountain. Many persons 
witnessed this phenomenon, and observed the last, or last but one, 
of the supposed troop, occasionally leave his rank, and pass, at a 
gallop, to the front, when he resumed the same steady pace. The 
curious appearance, making the necessary allowance for imagina- 
tion, may be perhaps sufficiently accounted for by optical deception. 
— Survey of the Lakes, p. 25. 

Supernatural intimations of approaching fate are not, I believe, 
confined to Highland families. Howel mentions having seen, at a 
lapidary's, in 1632, a monumental stone, prepared for four persons 
of the name of Oxenham, before the death of each of whom, the 
inscription stated a white bird to have appeared and fluttered around 
the bed, while the patient was in the last agony. Familiar Lei- 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 239 

ters, edit. 1726. 247. Glanville mentions one family, the mem- 
bers of which received this solemn sign by music, the sound of 
which floated from the family residence, and seemed to die in a 
neighbouring wood ; another, that of Captain Wood of Bampton, 
to whom the signal was given by knocking. But the most re- 
markable instance of the kind occurs in the MS. Memoirs of Lady 
Fanshaw, so exemplary for her conjugal affection. Her husband, 
Sir Richard, and she, chanced, during their abode in Ireland, to 
visit a friend, the head of a sept, who resided in his ancient baro- 
nial castle, surrounded with a moat. At midnight she was awa- 
kened by a ghastly and supernatural scream, and, looking out of 
bed, beheld, by the moonlight, a female face and part of the form, 
hovering at the window. The distance from the ground, as well 
as the circumstance of the moat, excluded the possibility that what 
she beheld was of this world. The face was that of a young and 
rather handsome woman, but pale ; and the hair, which was reddish, 
was loose and dishevelled. The dress, which Lady Fanshaw's terror 
did not prevent her remarking accurately, was that of the ancient 
Irish. This apparition continued to exhibit itself for some time, 
and then vanished with two shrieks, similar to that which had first 
excited Lady Fanshaw's attention. In the morning, with infiniie 
terror, she communicated to her host what she had witnessed, and 
found him prepared not only to credit but to account for the ap- 
parition. " A near relation of my family," said he, " expired last 
night in this castle. We disguised our certain expectation of the 
event from you, lest it should throw a cloud over the cheerful re- 
ception which was due you. Now, before such an event happens 
in thi3 family and castle, the female spectre whom you have seen 
always is visible. She is believed to be the spirit of a woman of 
inferior rank, whom one of my ancestors degraded himself by mar- 
rying, and whom afterwards, to expiate the dishonour done his 
family, he caused to be drowned in the castle moat." 



Note 2 H. 

Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach wave 

Their shadows o'er Clan-Alpine's grave. — P. 85. 

Inch-Cailliach, the Isle of Nuns, or of Old Women, is a most 
beautiful island at the lower extremity of Loch Lomond. The 
church belonging to the former nunnery was long used as the place 
of worship for the parish of Buchanan, but scarce any vestiges of 
it now remain. The burial-ground continues to be used, and con- 
tains the family places of sepulture of several neighbouring clans. 



240 APPENDIX TO 

The monuments of the lairds of Macgregor, and of other families, 
claiming a descent from the old Scottish King Alpine, are most 
remarkable. The Highlanders are as zealous of their rights of se- 
pulture, as may be expected from a people, whose whole laws and 
government, if clanship can be called so, turned upon the single 
principle of family descent. " May his ashes be scattered on the 
water," was one of the deepest and most solemn imprecations 
which they used against an enemy. [See a detailed description of 
the funeral ceremonies of a Highland chieftain in the Fair Maid of 
Perth, Waverley Novels, vol. 43, chaps, x. and xL New Edition.] 



Note 2 I. 



-The dan deer's hide 



On fleeter foot was never tied.— P. 88. 

The present brogue of the Highlanders is made of half-dried 
leather, with holes to admit and let out the water ; for walking the 
moors dry-shod is a matter altogether out of question. The ancient 
buskin was still ruder, being made of undressed deer's hide, with 
the hair outwards ; a circumstance which procured the Highlanders 
the well-known epithet of Bed-shanks. The process is very accu- 
rately described by one Elder, (himself a Highlander) in the pro- 
ject for a union between England and Scotland, addressed to 
Henry VIII. — "We go a-hunting, and after that we have slain 
red-deer, we flay off the skin by-and-by, and setting of our bare- 
foot on the inside thereof, for want of -cunning shoemakers, by your 
grace's pardon, we play the cobblers, compassing and measuring 
so much thereof as shall reach up to our ankles, pricking the upper 
part thereof with holes, that the water may repass where it enters, 
and stretching it up with a strong thong of the same above our 
said ankles. So, and please your noble grace, we make our shoes. 
Therefore, we using such manner of shoes, the rough hairy side 
outwards, in your grace's dominions of England, we be called 
RougJi-footed Scots."— Pinkerton's History, vol. ii. p. 397. 



Note 2 K. 
The dismal coronach. — P. 91. 

The Coronach of the Highlanders, like the UlulaUts of the Ro- 
mans, and the Ululoo of the Irish, was a wild expression of lamen- 
tation, poured forth by the mourners over the body of a departed 






THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 241 

friend. When the words of it were articulate, they expressed the 
praises of the deceased, and the loss the clan would sustain by his 
death. The following is a lamentation of this kind, literally trans- 
lated from the Gaelic, to some of the ideas of which the text stands 
indebted. The tune is so popular, that it has since become the 
war-march, or gathering of the clan. 

Coronach on Sir Lauchlan, Chief of Maclean. 
" Which of all the Senachies 
Can trace thy line from the root, up to Paradise, 
But Macvuirih, the son of Fergus ? 
No sooner had thine ancient stately tree 
Taken firm root in Albion, 
Than one of thy forefathers fell at Harlaw. — 
'Twas then we lost a chief of deathless name. 

" 'Tis no base weed— no planted tree, 

Nor a seedling of last Autumn ; 

Nor a sapling planted at Beltain ;* 

Wide, wide around were spread its lofty branches — 

But the topmost bough is lowly laid ! 

Thou hast forsaken us before Sawaine. 2 

" Thy dwelling is the winter house ; — 
Loud, sad, sad, and mighty is thy death -song ! 
Oh ! courteous champion of Montrose ! 
Oh ! stately warrior of the Celtic Isles ! 
Thou shalt buckle thy harness on no more !" 

The coronach has for some years past been suspended at fune- 
rals by the use of the bagpipe ; and that also is, like many other 
Highland peculiarities, falling into disuse, unless in remote dis- 
tricts. 



Note 2 L. 

Be?iltdi saw the Cross of Fire, 

It glanced like lightning up Strath- Ire.— -P. 94. 

Inspection of the provincial map of Perthshire, or any large map 
of Scotland, will trace the progress of the signal through the small 



1 Bell's fire, or Whitsunday. 2 Hallowe'en. 



242 APPENDIX TO 

district of lakes and mountains, which, in exercise of my poetical 
privilege, I have subjected to the authority of my imaginary chief- 
tain, and which, at the period of my romance, was really occupied 
by a clan who claimed a descent from Alpine ; a clan the most un- 
fortunate, and most persecuted, but neither the least distinguished, 
least powerful, nor least brave, of the tribes of the Gael. 

" Slioch non rioghridh duchaisach 
Bha-shios an Dun-Staiobhinish 
Aig an roubh crun na Halba othus 
*Stag a cheil duchas fast ris." 

The first stage of the Fiery Cross is to Duncraggan, a place near 
the Brigg of Turk, where a short stream divides Loch Achray from 
Loch Vennachar. From thence, it passes towards Callender, and 
then, turning to the left up the pass of Leny, is consigned to Nor- 
man at the chapel of Saint Bride, which stood on a small and ro- 
mantic knoll in the middle of the valley, ealled Strath-Ire. Tom- 
bea and Arnandave, or Ardmandave, are names of places in the 
vicinity. The alarm is then supposed to pass along the lake of 
Lubnaig, and through the various glens in the district of Balquidder, 
including ihe neighbouring tracts of Glenfinlas and Strathgartney. 



Note 2 M. 
No oath, but by his Chieftain's hand.—Y. 99. 

The deep and implicit respect paid by the Highland clansmen 
to their chief, rendered this both a common and a solemn oath. In 
other respects, they were like most savage nations, capricious in 
their ideas concerning the obligatory power of oaths. One solemn 
mode of swearing was by kissing the dirk, imprecating upon them- 
selves death by that, or a similar weapon, if they broke their vow. 
But for oaths in the usual form, they are said to have had little 
respect. As for the reverence due to the chief, it may be guessed 
from the following odd example of a Highland point of honour. : — 

" The clan whereto the above-mentioned tribe belongs, is the 
only one I have heard of, which is without a chief; that is, being 
divided into families, under several chieftains, without any parti- 
cular patriarch of the whole name. And this is a great reproach, 
as may appear from an affair that fell out at my table, in the High- 
lands, between one of that name and a Cameron. The provocation 
given by the latter was — ' Name your chief.' — The return of it at 
once was,—' You are a fool.' They went out next morning, but 
having early notice of it, I sent a small party of soldiers after tbem, 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 243 

■which, in all probability, prevented some barbarous mischief that 
might have ensued : for the chiefless Highlander, who is himself a 
petty chieftain, was going to the place appointed with a small-sword 
and pistol, whereas the Cameron (an old man) took with him only 
his broadsword, according to the agreement. 

" When all was over, and I had, at least seemingly, reconciled 
them, I was told the words, of which I seemed to think but slightly, 
were, to one of the clan, the greatest of all provocations." — Letters 
from Scotland, vol. ii. p. 221. 



Note 2 N. 
- Coir-nan- Uriskin. — P. 100. 



This is a very steep and most romantic hollow in the mountain 
of Benvenue, overhanging the south-eastern extremity of Loch 
Katrine. It is surrounded with stupendous rocks, and oversha- 
dowed with birch-trees, mingled with oaks, the spontaneous pro- 
duction of the mountain, even where its cliffs appear denuded of 
soil. A dale in so wild a situation, and amid a people whose ge- 
nius bordered on the romantic, did not remain without appropriate 
deities. The name literally implies the Corri, or Den, of the Wild 
or Shaggy men. Perhaps this, as conjectured by Mr. Alexander 
Campbell, * may have originally only implied its being the haunt of 
a ferocious banditti. But tradition has ascribed to the Urisk, who 
gives name to the cavern, a figure between a goat and a man ; in 
short, however much the classical reader may be startled, precisely 
that of the Grecian Satyr. The Urisk seems not to have inherited, 
with the form, the petulance of the silvan deity of the classics : his 
occupation, on the contrary, resembled those of Milton's Lubbar 
Fiend, or of the Scottish Brownie, though he differed from both in 
name and appearance. " The l/risks," says Dr. Graham, " were a 
sort of lubberly supernaturals, who, like the Brownies, could be 
gained over by kind attention, to perform the drudgery of the farm, 
and it was believed that many families in the Highlands had one 
of the order attached to it. They were supposed to be dispersed 
over the Highlands, each in his own wild recess, but the solemn 
stated meetings of the order were regularly held in this Cave of 
Benvenue. This current superstition, no doubt, alludes to some 
circumstance in the ancient history of this country."— Scenery on 
the Southern Confines of Perthshire, p. 19. 1806. It must be owned 



i Journey from Edinburgh, 1802, p. 109. 



244 APPENDIX TO 

that the Coir, or Den, does not, in its present state, meet our ideas 
of a subterraneous grotto, or cave, being only a small and narrow 
cavity, among huge fragments of rocks rudely piled together. But 
such a scene is liable to convulsions of nature, which a Lowlander 
cannot estimate, and which may have choked up what was origi- 
nally a cavern. At least the name and tradition warrant the 
author of a fictitious tale, to assert its having been such at the re- 
mote period in which this scene is laid. 



Note 2 O. 

The rugged silvan grot— P. 100. 

[" After landing on the skirts of Benvenue, we reach the cave 
(or more properly the cove) of the goblins, by a steep and narrow 
defile of a few hundred yards in length. It is a deep circular am- 
phitheatre of at least 600 yards of extent in its upper diameter, 
gradually narrowing towards the base, hemmed in all round by 
steep and towering rocks, and rendered impenetrable to the rays 
of the sun by a close covert of luxuriant trees. On the south and 
west it is bounded by the precipitous shoulder of Benvenue, to the 
height of at least 500 feet ; towards the east, the rock appears at 
some former period to have tumbled down, strewing the whole 
course of its fall with immense fragments, which now serve only to 
give shelter to foxes, wild-cats, and badgers. "---Dr. Graham.] 

Note 2 P. 

A single page, to bear his sword, 
Alone attended on his lord. — P. 102. 

A Highland chief, being as absolute in his patriarchal authority 
as any prince, had a corresponding number of officers attached to 
his person. He had his body-guards, called Luichttach, picked 
from his clan for strength, activity, and entire devotion to his per- 
son. These, according to their deserts, were sure to share abun- 
dantly in the rude profusion of his hospitality. It is recorded, for 
example, by tradition, that Allan MacLean, chief of that clan, 
happened upon a time to hear one of these favourite retainers 
observe to his comrade, that their chief grew old— "Whence do 
you infer that ?" replied the other. — "When was it," rejoined the 
first, " that a soldier of Allan's was obliged, as I am now, not ox ly 
to eat the flesh from the bone, but even to tear off the inner skin > 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 24.5 

or filament ?" The hint was quite sufficient, and MacLean next 
morning, to relieve his followers from such dire necessity, under- 
took an inroad on the mainland, the ravage of which altogether 
effaced the memory of his former expeditions for the like purpose. 
Our officer of Engineers, so often quoted, has given us a distinct 
list of the domestic offices who, independent of Luichttach, or 
gardes de corps, belonged to the establishment of a Highland 
Chief. These are, 1. The Henchman. 2. The Bard. See pre- 
ceding notes. 3. Blaider, or spokesman. 4. Gillie-more, or 
sword-bearer, alluded to in the text. 5. Gillie-casflue, who car- 
ried the chief, if on foot, over the fords. 6. GUlie-constraine, 
who leads the chief's horse. 7- Gillie-Trushanarinsh, the baggage 
man. 8. The piper. 9. The piper's gillie, or attendant, who car- 
ries the bag-pipe, i Although this appeared, naturally enough, 
very ridiculous to an English officer, who considered the master of 
such a retinue as no more than an English gentleman of £500 a- 
year, yet in the circumstances of the chief, whose strength and im- 
portance consisted in the number and attachment of his followers, 
it was of the last consequence, in point of policy, to have in his gift 
subordinate offices, which called immediately round his person 
those who were most devoted to him, and, being of value in their 
estimation, were also the means of rewarding them. 



Note 2 Q. 

The Taghairm calVd; by which, afar, 
Our sires foresaw the event of war.— P. 109. 

The Highlanders, like all rude people, had various superstitious ' 
modes of enquiring into futurity. One of the most noted was the 
Taghairm, mentioned in the text. A person was wrapped up in 
the skin of a newly-slain bullock, and deposited beside a waterfall, 
or at the bottom of a precipice, or in some other strange, wild, and 
unusual situation, where the scenery around him suggested nothing 
but objects of horror. In this situation, he revolved in his mind 
the question proposed ; and whatever was impressed upon him by 
his exalted imagination, passed for the inspiration of the disembo- 
died spirits, who haunt the desolate recesses. In some of these 
Hebrides, they attributed the same oracular power to a large black 
stone by the sea-shore, which they approached with certain solemni- 
ties, and considered the fir6t fancy which, came into their own minds, 



* Letters from Scotland, vol. ii. p. 15. 



246 APPENDIX TO 

after they did so, to be the undoubted dictate of the tutelar deity 
of the stone, and, as such, to be, if possible, punctually complied 
with. Martin has recorded the following curious modes of High- 
land augury, in which the Taghairm, and its effects upon the per- 
son who was subjected to it, may serve to illustrate the text. 

" It was an ordinary thing among the over-curious to consult an 
invisible oracle, concerning the fate of families and battles, &c. 
This was performed three different ways : the first was by a com- 
pany of men, one of whom, being detached by lot, was afterwards 
carried to a river, which was the boundary between two villages ; 
four of the company laid hold on him, and, having shut his eyes, 
they took him by the legs and arms, and then, tossing him to and 
again, struck his hips with force against the bank. One of them 
cried out, What is it you have got here ? another answers, A log 
of birch-wood. The other cries again. Let his invisible friends 
appear from all quarters, and let them relieve him by giving an 
answer to our present demands ; and in a few minutes after, a 
number of little creatures came from the sea, who answered the 
question, and disappeared suddenly. The man was then set at 
liberty, and they all returned home, to take their measures accord- 
ing to the prediction of their false prophets ; but the poor deluded 
fools were abused, for their answer was still ambiguous. This was 
always practised in the night, and may literally be called the works 
of darkness. 

" I had an account from the most intelligent and judicious men 
in the Isle of Skie, that about sixty-two years ago, the oracle was 
thus consulted only once, and that was in the parish of Kilmartin, 
on the east side, by a wicked and mischievous race of people, who 
are now extinguished, both root and branch. 

" The second way of consulting the oracle was by a party of 
men, who first retired to solitary places, remote from any house, 
and there they singled out one of their number, and wrapt him in 
a big cow's hide, which they folded about him ; his whole body 
was covered with it, except his head, and so left in this posture all 
night, until his invisible friends relieved him, by giving a proper 
answer to the question in hand ; which he received, as he fancied, 
from several persons that he found about him all that time. His 
consorts returned to him at the break of day, and then he communi- 
cated his news to them ; which often proved fatal to those con- 
cerned in such unwarrantable enquiries. 

" There was a third way of consulting, which was a confirma- 
tion of the second above mentioned. The same company who put 
the man into the hide, took a live cat, and put him on a spit ; one 
of the number was employed to turn the spit, and one of his con- 
sorts enquired of him, What are you doing ? he answered, I roast 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 247 

this cat, until lu8 friends answer the question ; which must be the 
same that was proposed by the man shut up in the hide. And after- 
wards, a very big cat l comes, attended by a number of lesser cats, 
desiring to relieve the cat turned upon the spit, and then answers 
the question. If this answer proved the same that was given to 
the man in the hide, then it was taken as a confirmation of the 
other, which, in this case, was believed infallible. 

"Mr. Alexander Cooper, present minister of North-List, told me 
that one John Erach, in the Isle of Lewis, assured hint, it was his 
fate to have been led by his curiosity with some who consulted this 
oracle, and that he was a night -within the hide, as above mention- 
ed ; during which time he felt and heard such terrible things, that 
he could not express them ; the impression it made on him was 
such as could never go off, and he said for a thousand worlds h^ 
would never again be concerned in the like performance, for this 
had disordered him to a high degree. He confessed it ingenuously, 
and with an air of great remorse, and seemed to be very penitent 
under a just sense of so great a crime : he declared this about five 
years since, and is still living in the Lewis for any thing I know." 
— Description of the Weston Isles, p. 110. See also Pennant's 
Scottish Tour, vol. ii. p. 361. 



Note 2 R. 

The choicest of the prey we Itad, 

JVhen swept our merry-men Gallangad.—P. 109. 

I know not if it be worth observing, that this passage is taken 
almost literally from the mouth of an old Highland Kern, or Ket- 
teran, as they were called. He used to narrate the merry doings 
of the good old time when he was follower of Rob Roy MacGregor. 
This leader, on one occasion, thought proper to make a descent 
upon the lower part of the Loch Lomond district, and summoned 
all the heritors and farmers to meet at the Kirk of Drymen, to pay 
him black-mail, i. e. tribute for forbearance and protection. As 
this invitation was supported by a band of thirty or forty stout 
fellows, only one gentleman, an ancestor, if I mistake not, of the 
present Mr. Grahame of Gartmore, ventured to decline compliance. 



J The reader may have met with the story of the " King of the 
Cats," in Lord Littleton's Letters. It is well known in the High- 
lands as a nursery tale. 



248 APPENDIX TO 

Rob Roy instantly swept his land of all he could drive away, and 
among the spoil was a bull of the old Scottish wild breed, whose 
ferocity occasioned great plague to the Ketterans. "But ere we 
had reached the Row of Dennan," said the old men, " a child might 
have scratched his ears." 1 The circumstance is a minute one, but 
it paints the time when the poor beeve was compelled 

" To hoof it o'er as many weary miles, 
With goading pikemen hollowing at his heels 
As e'er the bravest antler of the woods." 

EUiwcdd. 



Note 2 S. 

Or raven on the blasted oak, 

That, watching while the deer is broke, 

His morsel claims with sullen croak, — P. 111. 

Quartered. — Every thing belonging to the chase was matter ot 
solemnity among our ancestors ; but nothing was more so than the 
mode of cutting up, or, as it was technically called, breaking, the 
slaughtered stag. The forester had his allotted portion ; the 
hounds had a certain allowance ; and, to make the division as ge- 
neral as possible, the very birds had their share also. " There is a 
little gristle," says Turberville, "which is upon the spoone of the 
brisket, which we call the raven's bone ; and I have seen in some 
places a raven so wont and accustomed to it, that she would never 
fail to croak and cry for it all the time you were in breaking up of 
the deer, and would not depart till she had it." In the very ancient 
metrical romance of Sir Tristrem, that peerless knight, who is said 
to have been the very deviser of all rules of chase, did not omit the 
ceremony : 

"The rauen he yaue his yiftes 
Sat on the fourched tre." 

Sir Tristrem, vol. v. New Edit. p. 160 

The raven might also challenge his rights by the Book of St. 
Albans ; for thus says Dame Juliana Berners : 



i This anecdote was, in former editions, inaccurately ascribed to 
Gregor Macgrcgor of Glengyle, called Gldune Dhu, or Black-knee, 
a relation of Rob Roy, but, as I have been assured, not addicted 
to his predatory excesses. — Note to Third Edition. 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 24.0 



• Slitteth anon 



The bely to the side, from the eorbyn bone ; 
That is eorbyn 's fee, at the death he will be." 

Jonson, in "The Sad Shepherd," gives a more poetical account 
of the same ceremony. 

" Marian He that nndoes him, 

Doth cleave the brisket bone, upon the spoon 
Of which a little gristle grows — you call it — 

Robin Hood. The raven's bone. 

Marian. Now o'er head sat a raven 
On a sere bough, a grown, great bird, and hoarse, 
Who, all the while the deer was breaking up, 
So croaked and cried fort, as all the huntsmen, 
Especially old Scathlock, thought it ominous." 

Note 2 T. 

Alice Brand.— P. 117- 

This little fairy tale is founded upon a very curious Danish bal- 
lad, which occurs in the Kcempe Viser, a collection of heroic songs, 
first published in 1591, and reprinted in 1695, inscribed by Anders 
Sofrensen, the collector and editor, to Sophia, Queen of Denmark. 
I have been favoured with a literal translation of the original, by 
my learned friend Mr. Robert Jamieson, whose deep knowledge of 
Scandinavian antiquities will, I hope, one day be displayed in illus- 
tration of the history of Scottish Ballad and Song, for which no 
man possesses more ample materials. The story will remind the 
readers of the Border Minstrelsy of the tale of Young Tamlane. 
But this is only a solitary and not very marked instance of coin- 
cidence, whereas several of the other ballads in the same collection 
find exact counterparts in the Kcempe Viser. Which may have 
been the originals, will be a question for future antiquaries. Mr. 
Jamieson, to secure the power of literal translation, has adopted 
the old Scottish idiom, which approaches so near to that of the 
Danish, as almost to give word for word, as well as line for line, 
and indeed in many verses the orthography alone is altered. As 
Wester Haf, mentioned in the first stanza of the ballad, means the 
West Sea, in opposition to the Baltic, or East Sea, Mr. Jamieson 
inclines to be of opinion, that the scene of the disenchantment is 
laid in one of the Orkney, or Hebride Islands. To each verse in 
the original is added a burden, having a kind of meaning of its 
own, biit not applicable, at least not uniformly applicable, to the 



250 APPENDIX TO 

sense of the stanza to which it is subjoined : this is very common 
both in Danish and Scottish song.— [See the Ballad, Sir Walter 
Scott's Poetical TVorks, vol. viii. p. 328.] 



Note 2 U. 
■ The moody Elfin King.—V. 119. 



In a long dissertation upon the Fairy Superstitions, published in 
the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, the most valuable part of 
which was supplied by my learned and indefatigable friend, Dr. 
John Leyden, most of the circumstances are collected which can 
throw light upon the popular belief which even yet prevails re- 
specting them in Scotland. Dr. Grahame, author of an entertain- 
ing work upon the Scenery of the Perthshire Highlands, already 
frequently quoted, has recorded, with great accuracy, the peculiar 
tenets held by the Highlanders on this topic, in the vicinity of 
Loch Katrine. The learned author is inclined to deduce the whole 
mythology from the Druidical system, — an opinion to which there 
are many objections. 

" The Daoine Shi', or Men of Peace of the Highlanders, though 
not absolutely malevolent, are believed to be a peevish, repining 
race of beings, who, possessing themselves but a scanty portion of 
happiness, are supposed to envy mankind their more complete and 
substantial enjoyments. They are supposed to enjoy, in their sub- 
terraneous recesses, a sort of shadowy happiness, — a tinsel gran- 
deur ; which, however, they would willingly exchange for the more 
solid joys of mortality. 

" They are believed to inhabit certain round grassy eminences, 
where they celebrate their nocturnal festivities by the light of the 
moon. About a mile beyond the source of the Forth, above 
Lochcon, there is a place called Coirshi'an, or the Cove of the 
Men of Peace, which is still supposed to be a favourite place of 
their residence. In the neighbourhood, are to be seen many 
round conical eminences; particularly one near the head of the 
lake, by the skirts of which many are still afraid to pass after sun- 
set. It is believed, that if, on Hallow-eve, any person, alone, 
goes round one of these hills nine times, towards the left hand 
(sinistrorsum) a door shall open, by which he will be admitted into 
their subterraneous abodes. Many, it is said, of mortal race, have 
been entertained in their secret recesses. There they have been 
received into the most splendid apartments, and regaled with the 
most sumptuous banquets, and delicious wines. Their females 
surpass the daughters of men in beauty. The seemingly happy 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 2.51 

inhabitants pass their time in festivity, and in dancing to notes of 
the softest music But unhappy is the mortal who joins in their 
joys, or ventures to partake of their dainties. By this indulgence, 
he forfeits for ever the society of men, and is bound down irrevo- 
cably to the condition of Shi'ich, or Man of Peace. 

" A woman, as is reported in the Highland tradition, was con- 
veyed, in days of yore, into the secret recesses of the Men of Peace. 
There she was recognised by one who had formerly been an ordi- 
nary mortal, but who had, by some fatality, become associated with 
the Shi'ichs. This acquaintance, still retaining some portion of 
human benevolence, warned her of her danger, and counselled her, 
as she valued her liberty, to abstain from eating and drinking with 
them, for a certain space of time. She complied with the counsel 
of her friend ; and when the period assigned was elapsed, she found 
herself again upon earth, restored to the society of mortals. It is 
added, that when she examined the viands which had been pre- 
sented to her, and which had appeared so tempting to the eye, they 
were found, now that the enchantment was removed, to consist 
only of the refuse of the earth."— P. 107—111. 



Note 2 V. 

P/hy sounds yon stroke on beech and oak, 

Our moonlight circle's screen 9 
Or who comes here to chase the deer, 

Belov'd of our Eljin Queen.— P. 119. 

It has been already observed, that fairies, if not positively ma- 
levolent, are capricious, and easily offended. They are, like other 
proprietors of forests, peculiarly jealous of their rights of vert and 
venison, as appears from the cause of offence taken, in the original 
Danish ballad. This jealousy was also an attribute of the northern 
Ihurgar, or dwarfs ; to many of whose distinctions the fairies seem 
to have succeeded, if, indeed, they are not the same class of beings. 
In the huge metrical record of German chivalry, entitled the Hel- 
den-Buch, Sir Hildebrand, and the other heroes of whom it treats, 
are engaged in one of their most desperate adventures, from a rash 
violation of the rose-garden of an Elfin, or Dwarf King. 

There are yet traces of a belief in this worst and most malicious 
order of Fairies, among the Border wilds. Dr. Leyden has intro- 
duced such a dwarf into his ballad entitled the Cout of Keeldar, 
and has not forgot his characteristic detestation of the chase. 



252 APPENDIX TO 

" The third blast that young Keeldar blew, 

Still stood the limber fern, 
And a wee man, of swarthy hue, 

Upstarted by a cairn. 

" His russet weeds were brown as heath, 

That clothes the upland fell ; 
And the hair of his head was frizzly red 

As the purple heather-bell. 

" An urchin, clad in prickles red, 

Clung cow'ring to his arm ; 
The hounds they howl'd, and backward fled, 

As struck by fairy charm. 

" ' Why rises high the stag-hound's cry, 

Where stag-hound ne'er should be ? 
Why wakes that horn the silent morn, 

Without the leave of me ? ' — 

" ' Brown Dwarf, that o'er the muirland strays, 

Thy name to Keeldar tell ! ' — 
' The Brown Man of the Muirs, who stays 

Beneath the heather-bell. 

" ' 'Tis sweet beneath the heather-bell 

To live in autumn brown ; 
And sweet to hear the lav'rock's swell, 

Far, far from tower and town. 

" 'But woe betide the shrilling horn, 

The chase's surly cheer ! 
And ever that hunter is forlorn, 

Whom first at morn I hear.' " 

The poetical picture here given of the Duergar corresponds 
exactly with the following Northumbrian legend, with which I was 
lately favoured by my learned and kind friend, Mr. Surtees of 
Mainsforth, who has bestowed indefatigable labour upon the anti- 
quities of the English Border counties. The subject is in itself so 
curious, that the length of the note will, I hope, be pardoned. 

" I have only one record to offer of the appearance of our North- 
umbrian Duergar. My narratrix is Elizabeth Cockburn, an old 
wife of Offerton, in this county, whose credit, in a case of this kind, 
will not, I hope, be much impeached, when I add, that she is, by 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 253 

her dull neighbours, supposed to he occasionally insane, hut, by 
herself, to be at those times endowed with a faculty of seeing 
visions, and spectral appearances, which shun the common ken. 

" In the year before the great rebellion, two young men from 
Newcastle were sporting on the high moors above Eldson, and after 
pursuing their game several hours, sat down to dine in a green glen, 
near one of the mountain streams. After their repast, the younger 
lad ran to the brook for water, and after stooping to drink, was 
surprised, on lifting his head again, by the appearance of a brown 
dwarf, who stood on a crag covered with brackens, across the burn. 
This extraordinary personage did not appear to be above half the 
stature of a common man, but was uncommonly stout and broad- 
built, having the appearance of vast strength. His dress was en- 
tirely brown, the colour of the brackens, and his head covered with 
frizzled red hair. His countenance was expressive of the most 
savage ferocity, and his eyes glared like a bull. It seems he ad- 
dressed the young man first, threatening him with his vengeance, 
for having trespassed on his demesnes, and asking him if he knew 
in whose presence he stood ? The youth replied, that he now sup- 
posed him to be the lord of the moors ; that he offended through 
ignorance ; and offered to bring him the game he had killed. The 
dwarf was a little mollified by this submission, but remarked, that 
nothing could be more offensive to him than such an offer, as he 
considered the wild animals as his subjects, and never failed to 
avenge their destruction. He condescended further to inform him, 
that he was, like himself, mortal, though of years far exceeding the 
lot of common humanity ; and (what I should not have had an idea 
ot) that he hoped for salvation. He never, he added, fed on any 
thing that had life, but lived, in the summer, on whortle-berries, 
and in winter, on nuts and apples, of which he had great store in 
the woods. Finally, he invited his new acquaintance to accompany 
him home, and partake his hospitality ; an offer which the youth 
was on the point of accepting, and was just going to spring across 
the brook, (which if he had done, says Elizabeth, the dwarf would 
certainly have torn him in pieces.) when his foot was arrested by 
the voice of his companion, who thought he had tarried long : and 
on looking round again, ' the wee brown man was fled.' The story 
adds, that he was imprudent enough to slight the admonition, and 
to sport over the moors on his way homewards : but soon after his 
return, he fell into a lingering disorder, and died within the year." 



254 APPENDIX TO 

Note 2 W. 
The fairies'' fatal green.— V. 119. 



As the Daoine Shf, or Men of Peace, wore green habits, they 
were supposed to take offence when any mortals ventured to as- 
sume their favourite colour. Indeed, from some reason, which has 
been, perhaps, originally a general superstition, green is held in 
Scotland to be unlucky to particular tribes and counties. The 
Caithness men, who hold this belief, allege, as a reason, that their 
bands wore that colour when they were cut off at the battle of 
Flodden : and for the same reason they avoid crossing the Ord on 
a Monday, being the day of the week on which their ill-omened 
array set forth. Green is also disliked by those of the name of 
Ogilvy ; but more especially it is held fatal to the whole clan of 
Grahame. It is remembered of an aged gentleman of that name, 
that when his horse fell in a fox-chase, he accounted for it at once, 
by observing, that the whip-cord attached to his lash was of this 
unlucky colour. 



Note 2 X. 
For thou wert christened man.— P. 119. 






The Elves were supposed greatly to envy the privileges acquired 
by Christian initiation, and they gave to those mortals who had 
fallen into their power, a certain precedence, founded upon this 
advantageous distinction. Tamlane, in the old ballad, describes 
his own rank in the fairy procession : — 

" For I ride on a milk-white steed, 

And aye nearest the town ; 
Because I was a christen'd knight, 

They give me that renown." 

I presume, that, in the Danish ballad of the Elfin Gray, [see 
Poetical Works, vol. viii. p. 328.] the obstinacy of the "Weiest 
Elf," who would not flee for cross or sign, is to be derived from the 
circumstance of his having been "christened man." 

How eager the Elves were to obtain for their offspring the pre- 
rogatives of Christianity, will be proved by the following story : 
"In the district called Haga, in Iceland, dwelt a nobleman called 
Sigward Forster, who had an intrigue with one of the subterranean 
females. The elf became pregnant, and exacted from her lover a 



THE LADY OP THE LAKE. 255 

firm promise that he would procure the baptism of the infant. At 
the appointed time, the mother came to the churchyard, on the 
wall of which she placed a golden cup, and a stole for the priest, 
agreeable to the custom of making an offering at baptism. She 
then stood a little apart. When the priest left the church, he 
enquired the meaning of what he saw, and demanded of Sigward, 
if he avowed himself the father of the child. But Sigward, 
ashamed of the connexion, denied the paternity. He was then 
interrogated if he desired that the child should be baptized ; but, 
this also he answered in the negative, lest, by such request, he 
should admit himself to be the father. On which the child was 
left untouched and unbaptized. Whereupon the mother, in extreme 
wrath, snatched up the infant and the cup, and retired, leaving the 
priestly cope, of which fragments are still in preservation. But 
this female denounced and imposed upon Sigward, and his poste- 
rity, to the ninth generation, a singular disease, with which many 
of his descendants are afflicted at this day." Thus wrote Einar 
Dudmond, pastor of the parish of Garpsdale, in Iceland, a man 
profoundly versed in learning, from whose manuscript it was ex- 
tracted by the learned Torfaeus. — Historia Hvoffi Krahii, Hafnice 
1715, prefatia. 



Note 2 Y. 

And gaily shines the Fairy-land— 
But all is glistening show — P. 121. 

No fact respecting Fairy-land seems to be better ascertained 
than the fantastic and illusory nature of their apparent pleasure 
and splendour. It has been already noticed in the former quota- 
tions from Dr. Grahame's entertaining volume, and may be con- 
firmed by the following Highland tradition. " A woman, whose 
new-born child had been conveyed by them into their secret 
abodes, was also carried thither herself, to remain> however, only 
until she should suckle her infant. She, one day, during this 
period, observed the Shi'ichs busily employed in mixing various 
ingredients in a boiling cauldron ; and, as soon as the composition 
was prepared, she remarked that they all carefully anointed their 
eyes with it, laying the remainder aside for future use. In a mo- 
ment when they were all absent, she also attempted to anoint her 
eyes with the precious drug, but had time to apply it to one eye 
only, when the Daoine Sht returned. But with that eye she was 
henceforth enabled to see every thing as it really passed in their 
secret abodes :— She saw every object, not as she hitherto had 



256 APPENDIX TO 

done, in deceptive splendour and elegance, but in its genuine 
colours and form. The gaudy ornaments of the apartment were 
reduced to the walls of a gloomy cavern. Soon after, having dis- 
charged her office, she was dismissed to her own home. Still, 
however, she retained the faculty of seeing, with her medicated 
eye, every thing that was done, any where in her presence, by the 
deceptive art of the order. One day, amidst a throng of people, 
she chanced to observe the Shi'ich, or man of peace, in whose 
possession she had left her child ; though to every other eye invisi- 
ble. Prompted by maternal affection, she inadvertently accosted 
him, and began to enquire after the welfare of her child. The man 
of peace, astonished at being thus recognised by one of mortal 
race, demanded how she had been enabled to discover him. Awed 
by the terrible frown of his countenance, she acknowledged what 
she had done. He spat in her eye, and extinguished it for ever." 
— Grahame's Sketches, p. 116 — 118. It is very remarkable, that 
this story, translated by Dr. Grahame from popular Gaelic tradi- 
tion, is to be found in the Otia Imperialia of Gervase of Tilbury. 1 
A work of great interest might be compiled upon the original of 
popular fiction, and the transmission of similar tales from age to 
age, and from country to country. The mythology of one period 
would then appear to pass into the romance of the next century, 
and that into the nursery tale of the subsequent ages. Such an in- 
vestigation, while it went greatly to diminish our ideas of the rich- 
ness of human invention, would also show, that these fictions, how- 
ever wild and childish, possess such charms for the populace, as 
enable them to penetrate into countries unconnected by manners 
and language, and having no apparent intercourse, to afford the 
means of transmission. It would carry me far beyond my bounds, 
to produce instances of this community of fable, among nations 
who never borrowed from each other any thing intrinsically worth 
learning. Indeed the wide diffusion of popular fictions may be 
compared to the facility with which straws and feathers are dis- 
persed abroad by the wind, while valuable metals cannot be trans- 
ported without trouble and labour. There lives, I believe, only 
one gentleman, whose unlimited acquaintance with this subject 
might enable him to do it justice •, I mean my friend Mr. Francis 
Douce, of the British Museum, whose usual kindness will, I hope, 
pardon my mentioning his name, while on a subject so closely con- 
nected with his extensive and curious researches. 

i [This story is still current in the moors of Staffordshire, and 
adapted by the peasantry to their own meridian. I have repeat- 
edly heard it told, exactly as here, by rustics who could not read. 
My last authority was a nailer near Cheadle.— -R. Jamiesoiv.] 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 



Note 2 Z. 



— . Snatched away 

To the joyless Elfin bower. — P. 121. 



The subjects of Fairy-land were recruited from the regions of 
humanity by a sort of crimping system, which extended to adults 
as well as to infants. Many of those who were in this world sup- 
posed to have discharged the debt of nature, had only become 
denizens of the " Londe of Faery." In the beautiful Fairy Ro- 
mance of Orfee and Heurodiis (Orpheus and Eurydice) in the 
Auchinleck MS., is the following striking enumeration of persons 
thus abstracted from middle earth. Mr. Ritson unfortunately pub- 
lished this romance from a copy in which the following, and many 
other highly poetical passages, do not occur : — 

" Then he gan biholde aboute al, 

And seighe ful liggeand within the wal> 

Of folk that wer thidJer y-brought. 

And thought dede and nere nought ; 

Some stode withouten hedde ; 

And sum non amies nade ; 

And sum thurch the bodi hadde wounde ; 

And sum lay wode y-bounde; 

And sum armed on hors sete ; 

And sum astrangled as thai ete ; 

And sum war in water adreynt ; 

And sum with fire al forschreynt ; 

Wives ther lay on childe bedde ; 

Sum dede, and sum awedde; 

And wonder fele ther lay besides, 

Right as thai slepe her undertides ; 

Eche was thus in the warld y-nome 

With fairi thider y-come." 



Note 3 A. 
Though space and laio the stag we tend, 

Who ever rcck'd. where, how, or when, 

The prowling fox was trajip'd or slain ?— P. 135. 

St. John actually used this illustration when engaged in con 



258 APPENDIX TO 

luting the plea of law proposed for the unfortunate Earl of Straf- 
ford : " It was true, we gave laws to hares and deer, because they 
are beasts of chase : but it was never accounted either cruelty or 
foul play to knock foxes or wolves on the head as they can be 
found, because they are beasts of prey. In a word, the law and 
humanity were alike ; the one being more fallacious, and the other 
more barbarous, than in any age had been vented in such an au- 
thority." — Clarendon's History of the Rebellion. Oxford, 1702, 
fol. vol. p. 183. 



Note 3 B. 



-His Highland cheer, 



The harden* d flesh of mountain deer.— P. 136. 

The Scottish Highlanders, in former times, had a concise mode 
of cooking their venison, or rather of dispensing with cooking it, 
which appears greatly to have surprised the French, whom chance 
made acquainted with it. The Vidame of Chartres, when a host- 
age in England, during the reign of Edward VI., was permitted to 
travel into Scotland, and penetrated as far as to the remote 
Highlands (au fin fond des Sauvages.) After a great hunting 
party, at which a most wonderful quantity of game was destroyed, 
he saw these Scottish savages devour a part of their venison raw, 
without any farther preparation than compressing it between two 
batons of wood, so as to force out the blood, and render it ex- 
tremely hard. This they reckoned a great delicacy; and when 
the Vidame partook of it, his compliance with their taste rendered 
him extremely popular. This curious trait of manners was com- 
municated by Mons. de Montmorency, a great friend of the Vi- 
dame, to Brantome, by whom it is recorded in Vies des Hommes 
IUustres, Discours, lxxxix. art. 14. The process by which the 
raw venison was rendered eatable is described very minutely in 
the romance of Perceforest, where Estonne, a Scottish knight- 
errant, having slain a deer, says to his companion Claudius: — 
" Sire, or mangerez vous et moy aussi. Voire si nous auions de 
feu, dit Claudius. Par Fame de mon pere, dist Estonne, ie vous 
atourneray et cuiray a la maniere de nostre pays comme pour 
cheualier errant. Lors tira son espee, et sen vint a la branche 
dung arbre, et y fait vng grant trou, et puis fend la branche bien 
deux piedx, et boute la cuisse du cerf entredeux, et puis prent le 
licol de son cheval, et en lye la branche, et destraint si fort, que 
le sang et les humeurs de la chair saillent hors, et demeure la chair 
douloe et seiche. Lors prent la chair, ct oste ius le cuir, et la 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 259 

chaire demeure aussi blanche comme si ce feust dung chappon. 
Dont dist a Claudius, Sire, ie la vous ay cuiste a la guise de mon 
pays, vous en pouez manger hardyement, car ie mangeray premier. 
Lors met sa main a sa selle en vng lieu quil y auoit, et tire hors 
sel et poudre de poiure et gingembre, mesle ensemble, et le iecte 
dessus, et le frote sus bien fort, puis le couppe a moytie, et en 
donne a Claudius l'une des pieces, et puis mort en l'autre aussi 
Bauoureusement quil est aduis que il en feist la pouldre voller. 
Quant Claudius veit quil le mangeoit de tel goust, il en print grant 
fain et commence a manger tresvoulentiers, et dist a Estonne : 
Par 1'ame de moy ie ne mangeay oncquesmais de chair atournee 
de telle guise : mais doresenauant ie ne me retourneroye pas hors 
de mon chemin par auoir la cuite. Sire, dist Estonne. quant ie 
suis en desers d'Escosse, dont ie suis seigneur, ie cheuaucheray 
huit iours ou quinze que ie n'entreray en chastel ne en maison, et 
si ne verray feu ne persone viuant fors que bestes sauuages, et de 
celles mangeray atournees en ceste maniere, et mieulx me plaira 
que la viande de l'empereur. Ainsi sen vont mangeant et cheuau- 
chant iusques adonc quilz arriuerent sur une moult belle fontaine 
qui estoit en vne valee. Quant Estonne la vit il dist a Claudius, 
allons boire a ceste fontaine. Or beuuons, dist Estonne, du boire 
que le grant dieu a pourueu a toutes gens, et qui me plaist mieulx 
que les ceruoises d'Angleterre." — La Tresclegante Hystoire du 
tresnoble Roy Perceforest. Paris, 1531, fol. tome i. fol. lv. vers. 

After all, it may be doubted whether la chaire nostree, for so the 
French called the venison thus summarily prepared, was any thing 
more than a mere rude kind of deer- ham. 



Note 3 C. 

The young King, meufd in Stirling tower, 
Was stranger to respect and power.— -P. 143. 

There is scarcely a more disorderly period of Scottish history 
than that which succeeded the battle of Flodden, and occupied the 
minority of James V. Feuds of ancient standing broke out like 
old wounds, and every quarrel among the independent nobility, 
which occurred daily, and almost hourly, gave rise to fresh blood- 
shed. " There arose," said Pitscottie, " great trouble and deadly 
feuds in many parts of Scotland, both in the north and west parts. 
The Master of Forbes, in the north, slew the Laird of Meldrum, 
under tryst :" (i. e. at an agreed and secure meeting:) " Likewise, 
the Laird of Drummelzier slew the Lord Fleming at the hawking ; 
and, likewise, there was slaughter among many other great lords," 



260 APPENDIX TO 

p. 121. Nor was the matter much mended under the government 
of the Earl of Angus : for though he caused the king to ride through 
all Scotland, " under the pretence and colour of justice, to punish 
thief and traitor, none were found greater than were in their own 
company. And none at that time durst strive with a Douglas, nor 
yet a Douglas's man ; for if they would, they got the worst. There- 
fore, none durst plainzie of no extortion, theft, reiff, nor slaughter, 
done to them by the Douglasses, or their men ; in that cause they 
were not heard, so long as the Douglas had the court in guiding." — 
ibid. p. 133. 



Note 3 D. 

The Gael, of plain and river heir, 

Shall, vMh strong hand, redeem his share. — P. 145. 

The ancient Highlanders verified in their practice the lines of 
Gray : — 

" An iron race the mountain cliffs maintain, 
Foes to the gentler genius of the plain ; 
For where unwearied sinews must he found, 
With side-long plough to quell the flinty ground ; 
To turn the torrent's swift descending flood ; 
To tame the savage rushing from the wood ; 
What wonder if, to patient valour train'd, 
They guard with spirit what by strength they gain'd ; 
And while their rocky ramparts round they see 
The rough abode of want and liberty, 
(As lawless force from confidence will grow,) 
Insult the plenty of the vales below ?" 
Fragment on the Alliance ofEducatim and Government. 

So far, indeed, was a Creagh, or foray, from being held disgrace- 
ful, that a young chief was always expected to show his talents 
for command so soon as he assumed it, by leading his clan on a 
successful enterprize of this nature, either against a neighbouring 
sept, for which constant feuds usually furnished an apology, or 
against the Sassenach, Saxons, or Lowlanders, for which no apo- 
logy was necessary. The Gael, great traditional historians, never 
forgot that the Lowlands had, at some remote period, been the 
property of their Celtic forefathers, which furnished an ample 
vindication of all the ravages that they could make on the unfor- 
tunate districts which lay within their reach. Sir James Grant of 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 261 

Grant is in possession of a letter of apology from Cameron of 
Lochiel, whose men had committed some depredation upon a farm 
called Moines, occupied by one of the Grants. Lochiel assures 
Grant, that, however the mistake had happened, his instructions 
were precise, that the party should foray the province of Moray, 
(a Lowland district,) where, as he coolly observes, " all men take 
their prey." 



Note 3 E. 



-/ only meant 



To shoiv the reed on which you leant, 
Deeming this path you might pursue 
Without a pass from Roderick Dhu. — P. 149. 

This incident, like some other passages in the poem, illustrative 
of the character of the ancient Gael, is not imaginary, but borrowed 
from fact The Highlanders, with the inconsistency of most nations 
in the same state, were alternately capable of great exertions of 
generosity, and of cruel revenge^and perfidy. The following story 
I can only quote from tradition, but with such an assurance from 
those by whom it was communicated, as permits me little doubt of 
its authenticity. Early in the last century, John Gunn, a noted 
Cateran, or Highland robber, infested Inverness-shire, and levied 
black-mail up to the walls of the provincial capital. A garrison was 
then maintained in the castle of that town, and their pay (country 
banks being unknown) was usually transmitted in specie, under the 
guard of a small escort. It chanced that the officer who com- 
manded this little party was unexpectedly obliged to halt, about 
thirty miles from Inverness, at a miserable inn. About nightfall, 
a stranger in the Highland dress, and of very prepossessing appear- 
ance, entered the same house. Separate accommodation being 
impossible, the Englishman offered the newly-arrived guest a part 
of his supper, which was accepted with reluctance. By the con- 
versation he found his new acquaintance knew well all the passes 
of the country, which induced him eagerly to request his company 
on the ensuing morning. He neither disguised his business and 
charge, nor his apprehensions of that celebrated freebooter, John 
Gunn. The Highlander hesitated a moment, and then frankly con- 
sented to be his guide. Forth they set in the morning ; and, in 
travelling through a solitary and dreary glen, the discourse again 
turned on John Gunn. " Would you like to see him?" said the 
guide ; and, without waiting an answer to this alarming question, 
he whistled, and the English officer, with his small party, were sur- 



262 APPENDIX TO 

rounded by a body of Highlanders, whose numbers put resistance 
out of question, and who were all well armed. " Stranger," resu- 
med the guide, " I am that very John Gunn by whom you feared 
to be intercepted, and not without cause : for I came to the inn 
last night with the express purpose of learning your route, that I 
and my followers might ease you of your charge by the road. Bui 
I am incapable of betraying the trust you reposed in me, and hav- 
ing convinced you that you were in my power, I can only dismiss 
you unplundered and uninjured." He then gave the officer direc- 
tions for his journey, and disappeared with his party, as suddenly 
as they had presented themselves. 



" Note 3 F. 

Bochastle.—F. 150. 

The torrent which discharges itself from Loch Vennachar, the 
lowest and eastmost of the three lakes which form the scenery ad- 
joining to the Trosachs, sweeps through a flat and extensive moor, 
called Bochastle. Upon a small eminence, called the Bun of Bo- 
chastle, and indeed on the plain itself, are some intrenchments, 
which have been thought Roman. There is adjacent to Callender, 
a sweet villa, the residence of Captain Fairfoul, entitled the Roman 
Camp. 

Note 3 G. 

See, here, all vantageless I stand, 

Arm'd like thyself, with single brand. — P. 150> 

The duellists of former times did not always stand upon those 
punctilios respecting equality of arms, which are now judged essen- 
tial to fair combat. It is true, that in formal combats in the lists, 
the parties were, by the judges of the field, put as nearly as pos- 
sible in the same circumstances. But in private duel it was often 
otherwise. In that desperate combat which was fought between 
Quelus, a minion of Henry III. of France, and Antraguet, with 
two seconds on each side, from which only two persons escaped 
alive, Quelus complained that his antagonist had over him the ad- 
vantage of a poniard which he used in parrying, while his left 
hand, which he was forced to employ for the same purpose, was 
cruelly mangled. When he charged Antraguet with this odds, 
" Thou hast done wrong," answered he, "to forget thy dagger at 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 263 

home. We are here to fight, and not to settle punctilios of arms." 
In a similar duel, however, a young brother of the house of Au- 
bayne, in Angoulesme, behaved more generously on the like occa- 
sion, and at once threw away his dagger when his enemy challen- 
ged it as an undue advantage. But at this time hardly any thing 
can be conceived more horridly brutal and savage, than the mode 
in which private quarrels were conducted in France. Those who 
were most jealous of the point of honour, and acquired the title of 
Riiffinte, did not scruple to take every advantage of strength, num- 
bers, surprise, and arms, to accomplish their revenge. The Sieur 
de Brantome, to whose discourse on duels I am obliged for these 
particulars, gives the following account of the death and principles 
of his friend, the Baron de Vitaux : 

" J'ay oui conter a un Tireur d'armes, qui apprit a Millaud a en 
tirer, lequel s'appelloit Seigneur le Jacques Ferron, de la ville 
d'Ast, qui avoit este a moy, il fut despuis tue a Saincte-Basille 
en Gascogne, lors que Monsieur du Mayne l'assiegea, lui servant 
d'Ingenieur; et de malheur, je l'avois addresse audit Baron 
quelques trois mois auparavant, pour l'exercer a tirer, bien qu'il 
en S9eust prou ; mais il n'en fit compte : et le laissant, Millaud s'en 
servit, et le rendit fort adroit. Ce Seigneur Jacques done me 
raconta, qu'il s'estoit monte sur un noyer, assez loing, pour en voir 
le combat, et qu'il ne vist jamais homme y aller plus bravement, 
uy plus resolument, ny de grace plus asseur^e ny determinee, II 
commenpa de marcher de cinquante pas vers son ennemy, relevant 
souvent ses moustaches en haut d'une main ; et estant a vingt pas 
de son ennemy, (non plustost, ) il mit la main a l'espee qu'il tenoit 
en la main, non qu'il l'eust tir£e encore ; mais en marchant, il fit 
voller le fourreau en Fair, en le secouant, ce qui est le beau de 
cela, et qui monstroit bien une grace de combat bien assuree et 
froide, et nullement temeraire, comme il y en a qui tirent leurs 
espees de cinq cents pas de l'ennemy, voire de miile, comme j'en 
ay veu aucuns. Ainsi mourut ce brave Baron, le paragon de 
France, qu'on nommoit tel, a bien venger ses querelles, par grandes 
et determinees resolutions. II n'estoit pas seulement estime en 
France, mais en Italie, Espaigue, Allemaigne, en Boulogne et 
Angleterre ; et desiroient fort les Etrangers, venant en France, le 
voir ; car je l'ay veu, tant sa renommee volloit. II estoit fort petit 
de corps, mais fort grand de courage. Ses ennemis disoient qu'il 
ne tuoit pas bien ses gens, que par advantages et supercheries. 
Certes, je tiens de grands capitaines, et mesme d'ltaliens, qui ont 
estez d'autres fois les premiers vengeurs du monde, in ogni modo, 
disoient ils, qui ont tenu cette maxime, qu'une supercherie ne se 
devoit payer que par semblable monnoye, et n'y alloit point la de 
d£shonneur."— (fcuiref de Brantome, Paris, 1787-8. Tome viii. 



264 APPENDIX TO 

p. 90-92. It may be necessary to inform the reader, that this 
paragon of France was the most foul assassin of his time, and had 
committed many desperate murders, chiefly by the assistance of 
his hired banditti ; from which it may be conceived how little the 
point of honour of the period deserved its name. I have chosen 
to give my heroes, who are indeed of an earlier period, a stronger 
tincture of the spirit of chivalry. 



Note 3 H. 

Ill fared it then with Roderick Dhu, 

That on the field his targe he threw. — P. 152. 






A round target of light wood, covered with strong leather, and 
studded with brass or iron, was a necessary part of a Highlander's 
equipment. In charging regular troops they received the thrust of 
the bayonet in this buckler, twisted it aside, and used the broad- 
sword against the encumbered soldier. In the civil war of 1745, 
most of the front rank of the clans were thus armed ; and Captain 
Grose informs us, that in 1747, the privates of the 42d regiment, 
then in Flanders, were for the most part permitted to carry targets. 
— Military Antiquities, vol. i. p. 164. A person thus armed had 
a considerable advantage in private fray. Among verses between 
Swift and Sheridan, lately published by Dr. Barrett, there is an 
account of such an encounter, in which the circumstances, and con- 
sequently the relative superiority of the combatants, are precisely 
the reverse of those in the text :— - 

" A Highlander once fought a Frenchman at Margate, 

The weapons, a rapier, a backsword, and target ; 

Brisk Monsieur advanced as fast as he could, 

But all his fine pushes were caught in the wood, 

And Sawny, with backsword, did slash him and nick him, 

While t'other, enraged that he could not once prick him, 

Cried, ' Sirrah, you rascal, you son of a whore, 

Me will fight you, be gar ! if you'll come from your door." 



Note 3 I. 

For, trained abroad his arms to wield., 

Fitz- James's blade was sword and shield.— P. 152. 

The use of defensive armour, and particularly of the buckler, or 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 265 

target, was general in Queen Elizabeth's time, although that of the 
single rapier seems to have been occasionally practised much ear- 
lief. 1 Rowland Yorke, however, who betrayed the fort of Zutphen 
to the Spaniards, for which good service he was afterwards poison- 
ed by them, is said to have been the first who brought the rapier- 
fight into general use. Fuller, speaking of the swash-bucklers, or 
buHies, of Queen Elizabeth's time, says, " West Smithfield was 
formerly called Ruffians' Hall, where such men usually met, casu- 
ally or otherwise, to try masteries with sword and buckler. More 
were frightened than hurt, more hurt than killed therewith, it 
being accounted unmanly to strike beneath the knee. But since 
that desperate traitor Rowland Yorke first introduced thrusting 
with rapiers, sword and buckler are disused." In " The Two 
Angry Women of Abingdon," a comedy, printed in 1599, we have 
a pathetic complaint : — " Sword and buckler fight begins to grow 
out of use. I am sorry for it : 1 shall never see good manhood 
again. If it be once gone, this poking fight of rapier and dagger 
will come up ; then a tall man and a good sword and buckler man, 
will be spitted like a cat or rabbit." But the rapier had upon the 
continent long superseded, in private duel, the use ©f sword and 
shield. The masters of the noble science of defence were chiefly 
Italians. They made great mystery of their art and mode of in- 
struction, never suffered any person to be present but the scholar 
who was to be taught, and even examined closets, beds, and other 
places of possible concealment. Their lessons often gave the most 
treacherous advantages ; for the challenged, having the right to 
choose his weapons, frequently selected some strange, unusual, 
and inconvenient kind of arms, the use of which he practised under 
these instructors, and thus killed at his ease his antagonist, to 
whom it was presented for the first time on the field of battle. See 
Brantome's Discourse on Duels, and the work on the same sub- 
ject, " si gentement ecrit" by the venerable Dr. Paris de Puteo. 
The Highlanders continued to use broadsword and target until 
disarmed after the affair of 1745-6. 



i See Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 61. 



266 APPENDIX TO 

Note 3 K. 
Like recreant yield, who fears to die. 

Like mountain-cat who guards her young, 
Full at Fitz- James's throat he sprung. — P. 153* 

I have not ventured to render this duel so savagely desperate 
as that of the celebrated Sir Ewan of Lochiel, chief of the clan 
Cameron, called, from his sable complexion, Ewan Dim. He was 
the last man in Scotland who maintained the royal cause during 
the great Civil War, and his constant incursions rendered him a 
very unpleasant neighbour to the republic garrison at Inverlochy ; 
now Fort William. The governor of the fort detached a party of 
three hundred men to lay waste Lochiel's possessions, and cut down 
his trees ; but, in a sudden and desperate attack made upon them 
by the chieftain with very inferior numbers, they were almost all 
cut to pieces. The skirmish is detailed in a curious memoir of 
Sir Ewan's life, printed in the Appendix of Pennant's Scottish 
Tour. 

** In this engagement, Lochiel himself had several wonderful 
escapes. In the retreat of the English, one of the strongest and 
bravest of the officers retired behind a bush, when he observed 
Lochiel pursuing, and seeing him unaccompanied with any, he leapt 
out, and thought him his prey. They met one another with equal 
fury. The combat was long and doubtful : the English gentleman 
had by far the advantage in strength and size ; but Lochiel, exceed- 
ing him in nimbleness and agility, in the end tript the sword out 
of his hand : they closed and wrestled, till both fell to the ground 
in each other's arms. The English officer got above Lochiel, and 
pressed him hard, but stretching forth his neck, by attempting to 
disengage himself, Lochiel, who by this time had his hands at 
liberty, with his left hand seized him by the collar, and jumping at 
his extended throat, he bit it with his teeth quite through, and kept 
such a hold of his grasp, that he brought away his mouthful : this, 
he said, was the sweetest bit he ever had in his lifetime."— V oh I p. 
375. 



THE LADY OP THE LAKE. 267 



Note 3 L. 

Ye lowers/ within whose circuit dread 

A Douglas by his sovereign bled ; 

And thou, sad and fatal mound ! 

That oft hast heard the death-axe sound. — P. 159. 

An eminence on the north-east of the Castle, where state crimi- 
nals were executed. Stirling was often polluted with noble blood. 
It is thus apostrophized by J. Johnston : — 

" Discordia tristis 

Heu quoties procerum sanguine tinxit humum ! 
Hoc uno infelix, et felix cetera ; nusquam 
Laetior aut coeli frons geniusve soli." 

The fate of William, eighth Earl of Douglas, whom James II. 
stabbed in Stirling Castle with his own hand, and while under his 
royal safe-conduct, is familiar to all who read Scottish history. 
Murdack Duke of Albany, Duncan Earl of Lennox, his father-in- 
law, and his two sons, Walter and Alexander Stuart, were executed 
at Stirling, in 1425. They were beheaded upon an eminence with- 
out the castle walls, but making part of the same hill, from whence 
they could behold their strong castle of Doune, and their exten- 
sive possessions. This " heading hill," as it was sometimes termed, 
bears commonly the less terrible name of Hurly-hacket, from its 
having been the scene of a courtly amusement alluded to by Sir 
David Lindsay, who says of the pastimes in which the young King 
was engaged, 

" Some harled him to the Hurly-hacket ;" 
which consisted in sliding, in some sort of chair it may be sup- 
posed, from top to bottom of a smooth bank. The boys of Edin- 
burgh, about twenty years ago, used to play at the hurly-hacket, on 
the Calton-hilL using for their seat a horse's skull. 



Note 3 M. 

The burgliers held their sports to-tlay—P. 159. 

Every burgh of Scotland, of the least note, but more especially 
the considerable towns, had their solemn play, or festival, when 
feats of archery were exhibited, and prizes distributed to those who 



268 APPENDIX TO 

excelled in wrestling, hurling the bar, and the other gymnastic 
exercises of the period. Stirling, a usual place of royal residence, 
was not likely to be deficient in pomp upon such occasions, espe- 
cially since James V. was very partial to them. His ready parti- 
cipation in these popular amusements was one cause of his acqui- 
ring the title of the King of the Commons, or Rex Plcbeiorum, as 
Lesly has latinized it. The usual prize to the best shooter was a 
silver arrow. Such a one is preserved at Selkirk and at Peebles. 
At Dumfries, a silver gun was substituted, and the contention 
transferred to fire-arms. The ceremony, as there performed, is 
the subject of an excellent Scottish poem, by Mr. John Mayne, 
entitled the Siller Gun, 1 808, which surpasses the efforts of Fer- 
guson, and comes near those of Burns. 

Of James's attachment to archery, Pitscottie, the faithful, though 
rude recorder of the manners of that period, has given us evidence. 

" In this year there came an ambassador out of England, named 
Lord William Howard, with a bishop with him, with many other 
gentlemen, to the number of threescore horse, which were all able 
men and waled [picked] men for all kind of games and pastimes, 
shooting, louping, running, wrestling, and casting of the stone, but 
they were well 'sayed [essayed or tried] ere they past out of Scotland, 
and that by their own provocation ; but ever they tint : till at last, 
the Queen of Scotland, the king's mother, favoured the English- 
men, because she was the King of England's sister : and therefore 
she took an enterprise of archery upon the English-men's hands, 
contrary her son the king, and any six in Scotland that he would 
wale, either gentlemen or yeomen, that the English-men should 
shoot against them either at pricks, revere, or buts, as the Scots 



" The king, hearing this of his mother, was content, and gart 
her pawn a hundred crowns, and a tun of wine upon the English- 
men's hands ; and he incontinent laid down as much for the Scot- 
tish-men. The field and ground was chosen in St. Andrews, and 
three landed men and three yeomen chosen to shoot against the 
English-men, to wit, David Wemyss of that ilk, David Arnot of 
that ilk, and Mr. John Wedderburn, vicar of Dundee ; the yeo- 
men, John Thomson, in Leith, Steven Taburner, with a piper, 
called Alexander Baillie ; they shot very near, and warred [worsted] 
the English-men of the enterprise, and wan the hundred crowns 
and the tun of wine, which made the king very merry that his men 
wan the victory. "—P. 147. 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 269 



Note 3 N. 
Robin Hood.— P. 161. 

The exhibition of this renowned outlaw and his band was a 
favourite frolic at such festivals as we are describing. This sport- 
ing, in which kings did not disdain to be actors, was prohibited in 
Scotland upon the Reformation, by a statute of the 6th Parliament 
of Queen Mary, c. 61, a.d, 1555, which ordered, under heavy 
penalties, that, " na manner of person be chosen Robert Hude, 
nor Little John, Abbot of Unreason, Queen of May, nor other- 
wise." But in 1561, the " rascal multitude," says John Knox, 
" were stirred up to make a Robin Hude, whilk enormity was of 
many years left and damned by statute and act of Parliament ; yet 
would they not be forbidden." Accordingly they raised a very 
serious tumult, and at length made prisoners the magistrates who 
endeavoured to suppress it, and would not release them till they 
extorted a formal promise that no one should be punished for his 
share of the disturbance. It would seem, from the complaints of 
the General Assembly of the Kirk, that these profane festivities 
were continued down to 1592. l Bold Robin was, to say the least, 
equally successful in maintaining his ground against the reformed 
clergy of England : for the simple and evangelical Latimer com- 
plains of coming to a country church, where the people refused to 
hear him, because it was Robin Hood's day ; and his mitre and 
rochet were fain to give way to the village pastime. Much curious 
information on this subject may be found in the Preliminary Dis- 
sertation to the late Mr. Ritson's edition of the songs respecting 
this memorable outlaw. The game of Robin Hood was usually 
acted in May ; and he was associated with the morrice-dancers, on 
whom so much illustration has been bestowed by the commentators 
on Shakspeare. A very lively picture of these festivities, contain- 
ing a great deal of curious information on the subject of the private 
life and amusements of our ancestors, was thrown, by the late in- 
genious Mr. Strutt, into his romance entitled Queen-hoo Hall, 
published after his death, in 1808. 



1 Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 414. 



270 APPENDIX TO 



Note 3 O. 



Indifferent as to archer wight, 

The monarch gave the arrow bright— -P. 1G2. 






The Douglas of the poem is an imaginary person, a supposed 
uncle of the Earl of Angus. But the king's behaviour during an 
unexpected interview with the Laird of Kilspindie, one of the ba- 
nished Douglasses, under circumstances similar to those in the 
text, is imitated from a real story told by Hume of Godscroft. I 
would have availed myself more fully of the simple and affecting 
circumstances of the old history, had they not been already woven 
into a pathetic ballad by my friend Mr. Finlay. i 

" His (the king's) implacability (towards the family of Douglas) 
did also appear in his carriage towards Archibald of Kilspindie, 
whom he, when he was a child, loved singularly well for his ability 
of body, and was wont to call him his Gray-Steill. 2 Archibald, 
being banished into England, could not well comport with the 
humour of that nation, which he thought to be too proud, and that 
they had too high a conceit of themselves, joined with a contempt 
and despising of all others. Wherefore, being wearied of that life, 
and remembering the king's favour of old towards him, he deter- 
mined to try the king's mercifulness and clemency. So he comes 
into Scotland, and taking occasion of the king's hunting in the park 
at Stirling, he casts himself to be in his way, as he was coming 
home to the castle. So soon as the king saw him afar off, ere he 
came near, he guessed it was he, and said to one of his courtiers, 
yonder is my Gray-Steill, Archibald of Kilspindie, if he be alive. 
The other answered, that it could not be he, and that he durst not 
come into the king's presence. The king approaching, he fell upon 
his knees and craved pardon, and promised from thenceforward to 
abstain from meddling in public affairs, and to lead a quiet and 
private life. The king went by, without giving him any answer, 
and trotted a good round pace up the hill. Kilspindie followed, 
and, though he wore on him a secret, or shirt of mail, for his par- 
ticular enemies, was as soon at the castle gate as the king. There 
he sat him down upon a stone without, and entreated some of the 
king's servants for a cup of drink, being weary and thirsty ; but 



i See Scottish Historical and Romantic Ballads. Glasgow, 1808, 
vol. ii. p. 117- 

2 A champion of popular romance. See Ellis's Romances, vol. 
jii. 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 271 

they, fearing the king's displeasure, durst give him none. When 
thp king was set at his dinner, he asked what he had done, what 
he had said, and whither he had gone ? It was told him that he 
had desired a cup of drink, and had gotten none. The king re- 
proved them very sharply for their discourtesy, and told them, that 
if he had not taken an oath that no Douglas should ever serve him, 
he would have received him into his service, for he had seen him 
sometime a man of great ability. Then he sent him word to go to 
Leith, and expect his further pleasure. Then some kinsman of 
David Falconer, the canonier, that was slain at Tantallon, began 
to quarrel with Archibald about the matter, wherewith the king 
showed himself not well pleased when he heard of it. Then he com- 
manded him to go to France for a certain space, till he heard fur- 
ther from him. And so he did, and died shortly after. This gave 
occasion to the King of England, (Henry VIII.) to blame his 
nephew, alleging the old saying, That a king's face should give 
grace. For this Archibald (whatsoever were Angus's or Sir George's 
fault) had not been principal actor of any thing, nor no counsellor 
nor stirrer up, but only a follower of his friends, and that noways 
cruelly disposed."— Hume of Godscroft, ii. 107- 



Note 3 P. 

Prize of the tvrestling match, the King 
To Douglas gave a golden ring. — P. 162. 

The usual prize of a wrestling was a ram and a ring, but the 
animal would have embarrassed my story. Thus, in the Cokes 
Tale of Gamelyn, ascribed to Chaucer : 

" There happed to be there beside 

Tiyed a wrestling ; 
And therefore there was y-setten 

A ram and als a ring." 

Again the Litil Geste of Robin Hood : 

" By a bridge was a wrestling, 

And there tarried was he, 
And there was all 'the best yemen 

Of all the west countrey. 
A full fayre game there was set up, 

A white bull up y-pight, 
A greater courser with saddle and brydle, 

With gold burnished full bryght ; 



272 APPENDIX TO 

A payre of gloves, a red golde ringe, 

A pipe of wine, good fay ; 
What man bereth him best, I wis, 

The prise shall bear away." 

Ritson's Robin Hood, vol. 



Note 3 Q. 

These drew not for their fields the sword, 
Like tenants of a feudal lord, 
Nor own'd the patriarchal claim 
Of Chieftain in their leader's name; 
Adventurers they P. 175. 

The Scottish armies consisted chiefly of the nobiKty and barons, 
with their vassals, who held lands under them, for military service 
by themselves and their tenants. The patriarchal influence exer- 
cised by the heads of clans in the Highlands and Borders was of a 
different nature, and sometimes at variance with feudal principles. 
It flowed from the Patria Potestas, exercised by the chieftain as 
representing the original father of the whole name, and was often 
obeyed in contradiction to the feudal superior. James V. seems 
first to have introduced, in addition to the militia furnished from 
these sources, the service of a small number of mercenaries, who 
formed a body-guard, called the Foot-Band. The satirical poet, 
Sir David Lindsay, (or the person who wrote the prologue to his 
play of the "Three Estaites,") has introduced Finlay of the Foot- 
Band, who, after much swaggering upon the stage, is at length put 
to flight by the Fool, who terrifies him by means of a sheep's skull 
upon a pole. I have rather chosen to give them the harsh fea- 
tures of the mercenary soldiers of the period, than of this Scottish 
Thraso. These partook of the character of the Adventurous Com- 
panions of Froissart, or the Condottieri of Italy. 

One of the best and liveliest traits of such manners is the last 
will of a leader, called Geffroy Tete Noir, who having been slightly 
wounded in a skirmish, his intemperance brought on a mortal 
disease. When he found himself dying, he summoned to his 
bedside the adventurers whom he commanded, and thusaddressed 
them : — 

" Fayre sirs, quod Geffray, I knowe well ye have always served 
and honoured me as men ought to serve their soveraynge and capi- 
tayne, and I shal be the gladder if ye wyll agre to have to your 
capitayne one that is discended of my blode. Beholde here Aleyne 
Roux, my cosyn, and Peter his brother, who are men of armes 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 273 

and of my blode. I require you to make Aleyne youre capitayne, 
and to swere to hym faythe, obeysaunce, love, and loyalte, here in 
my presence, and also to his brother: howe be it, I wyll that 
Aleyne have the soverayne charge. Sir, quod they, we are well 
content, for ye hauve ryght well chosen. There all the compan- 
yons made them breke no poynt of that ye have ordayned and com- 
maunded."— Lord Berne rs' Froissart. 

Note 3 R. 

Get thee an ape, and trudge the land, 
The leader of a juggler band —P. 178. 

The jongleurs, or jugglers, as we learn from the elaborate work 
of the late Mr. Strutt, on the sports and pastimes of the people of 
England, used to call in the aid of various assistants, to render 
these performances as captivating as possible. The glee-maiden 
was a necessary attendant. Her duty was tumbling and dancing ; 
and therefore the Anglo-Saxon version of Saint Mark's Gospel 
states Herodias to have vaulted or tumbled before King Herod- In 
Scotland, these poor creatures seem, even at a late period, to have 
been bondswomen to their masters, as appears from a case re- 
ported by Fountainhall. " Reid the mountebank pursues Scot of 
Harden and his lady, for stealing away from him a little girl, called 
the tumbling-lassie, that danced upon his stage ; and he claimed 
damages, and produced a contract, whereby he bought her from 
her mother for £30 Scots. But we have no slaves in Scotland, and 
mothers cannot sell their bairns ; and physicians attested the em- 
ployment of tumbling would kill her ; and her joints were now 
grown stiff, and she declined to return ; though she was at least a 
'prentice, and so could not run away from her master ; yet some 
cited Moses's law, that if a servant shelter himself with thee, 
against his master's cruelty, thou shalt surely not deliver him up. 
The Lords, renitente cancellario, assoilzied Harden, on the 2/th ot 
January, (1687- )" — Fountainh all's Decisions, vol. i. p. 439. ] 

i Though less to my purpose, I cannot help noticing a circum- 
stance respecting another of this Mr. Reid's attendants, which oc- 
curred duringJames II. 's zeal for Catholic proselytism, and it is told 
by Fountainhall, with dry Scottish irony. " January 17th, lfi87-— 
Reid the mountebank is received into the Popish church, and one 
of his blackamores was persuaded to accept of baptism from the 
Popish priests, and to turn Christian Papist ; which was a great 
trophy : he was called James, after the king and chancellor, and 
the Apostle James." — Ibid p 440. s 



274 APPENDIX TO 



Note 3 S. 

That stirring air that peals on high, 
0' r Dermid's race our victory, — 
Strike it! P. 185. 

There are several instances, at least in tradition, of persons so 
much attached to particular tunes, as to require to hear them on 
their death-bed. Such an anecdote is mentioned by the late Mr. 
Riddel of Glenriddel, in his collection of Border tunes, respecting 
an air called the " Dandling of the Bairns," for which a certain 
Gallovidian laird is said to have evinced this strong mark of par- 
tiality. It is popularly told of a famous freebooter, that he com- 
posed the tune known by the name of Macpherson's Rant while 
under sentence of death, and played it at the gallows-tree. Some 
spirited words have been adapted to it by Burns. A similar story 
is recounted of a Welsh bard, who composed and played on his 
death-bed the air called Dafyddy Garregg Wen. But the most 
curious example is given by Brantome, of a maid of honour at the 
court of France, entitled, Mademoiselle de Limeuil. " Durant sa 
maladie, dont elle trespassa, jamais elle ne cessa, ains causa tous- 
jours ; car elle estoit fort grande parleuse, brocardeuse, et tres-bien 
et fort a propos, et tres-belle avec cela. Quand l'heure de sa fin 
fut venue, elle fit venir a soy son valet, (ainsi que les filles de la 
cour en ont chacune un,) qui s'appelloit Julien, et scavoit tres-bien 
jotier du violon. ' Julien,' luy dit elle, ' prenez vostre violon, et 
sonnez moy tousjours jusques a ce que vous me voyez morte (car je 
m'y en vais) la defaite des Suisses, et le mieux que vous pourrez, et 
quand vous serez sur le mot, * Tout est perdu,' sonnez le par 
quatre ou cing fois, le plus piteusement que vous pourrez,' ce qui 
fit 1'autre, et elle-mesme luy aidoit de la voix, et quand ce vint 
' tout est perdu,' elle le rei'tera par deux fois; et se tournant de 
1'autre coste du chevet, elle dit a ses compagnes : ' Tout est perdu 
a ce coup, et a bon escient ;' et ainsi dec£da. Voila une mort 
joyeuse et plaisante. Je tiens ce conte de deux de ses compagnes, 
dignes de foi, qui virent joiier ce mystere." — Oeuvres de Brantome, 
iii. 507. The tune to which this fair lady chose to make her final 
exit was composed on the defeat of the Swiss at Marignano. The 
burden is quoted by Panurge, in Rabelais, and consists of these 
words, imitating the jargon of the Swiss, which is a mixture of 
French and German 

u Tout est velore 
La Tintelore, 
Tout est verlore, bi GoU" 



THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 275 



Note 3 T. 
Battle qfBeaV and Duine. — P. 186. 

A skirmish actually took place at a pass thus called in the 
Trosachs, and closed with the remarkable incident mentioned in 
the text. It was greatly posterior in date to the reign of James V. 

"In this roughly- wooded island, 1 the country people secreted 
their wives and children, and their most valuable effects, from the 
rapacity of Cromwell's soldiers, during their inroad into this coun- 
try, in the time of the republic. These invaders, not venturing to 
ascend by the ladders, along the side of the lake, took a more cir- 
cuitous road, through the heart of the Trosachs, the most frequented 
path at that time, which penetrates the wilderness about half way 
between Binean and the lake, by a tract called Yea-chilleach, or 
the Old Wife's Bog. 

" In one of the denies of this by-road, the men of the eountry 
at that time hung upon the rear of the invading enemy, and shot 
one of Cromwell's men, whose grave marks the scene of action, 
and gives name to that pass. 2 In revenge of this insult the soldiers 
resolved to plunder the island, to violate the women, and put the 
children to death. With this brutal intention, one of the party, 
more expert than the rest, swam towards the island, to fetch the 
boat to his comrades, which had carried the women to their asylum, 
and lay moored in one of the creeks. His companions stood on the 
shore of the mainland, in full view of all that was to pass, waiting 
anxiously for his return with the boat. But just as the swimmer 
had got to the nearest point of the island, and was laying hold of 
a black rock, to get on shore, a heroine, who stood on the very 
point where he meant to land, hastily snatching a dagger from be- 
low her apron, with one stroke severed his head from the body. 
His party seeing this disaster, and relinquishing all future hope of 
revenge or conquest, made the best of their way out of their peril- 
ous situation. The amazon's great grandson lives at Bridge of 
Turk, who, besides others, attests the anecdote." — Sketch of the 
Scenery near Callender. Stirling, 1806, p. 20. I have only to add 
to this account, that the heroine's name was Helen Stuart. 



i That at the eastern extremity of Loch Katrine, so often men- 
tioned in the text. 
2 Beallach an duine. 



276 APPENDIX TO 

Note 3 U. 

His parting breath, stout Roderick Dhu.—V. 194. 

" Rob Roy, while on his deathbed, learned that a person, with 
whom he was at enmity, proposed to visit him. ' Raise me from 
my bed, said the invalid. ; ' throw my plaid around me, and bring 
me my claj T more, dirk, and pistols, — it shall never be said that a 
foeman saw Rob Roy MacGregor defenceless and unarmed.' His 
foeman, conjectured to be one of the MacLarens before and after 
mentioned, entered and paid his compliments, enquiring after the 
health of his formidable neighbour. Rob Roy maintained a cold 
haughty civility during their short conference ; and so soon as he 
had left the house, 'Now,' he said, ' all is over — let the piper play, 
Ha til mi tulidh,' [we return no more,] and he is said to have ex- 
pired before the dirge was finished." — Introduction to Rob Roy. 
Waverley Novels, vol. vii. p. 85. 

Note 3 V. 
And S note dourCs Knight is Scotland's King.— P. 199. 

This discovery will probably remind the reader of the beautiful 
Arabian tale of II Bondocani. Yet the incident is not borrowed 
from that elegant story, but from Scottish tradition. James V., 
of whom we are treating, was a monarch whose good and benevo- 
lent intentions often rendered his romantic freaks venial, if not 
respectable, since, from his anxious attention to the interests of the 
lower and most oppressed class of his subjects, he was, as we have 
seen, popularly termed the King of the Commons. For the pur 
pose of seeing that justice was regularly administered, and fre- 
quently from the less justifiable motive of gallantry, he used to 
traverse the vicinage of his several palaces in various disguises. 
The two excellent comic songs, entitled, " The Gaberlunzie Man/' 
and " We'll gangnae mair a roving," are said to have been founded 
upon the success of his amorous adventures when travelling in the 
disguise of a beggar. The latter is perhaps the best comic ballad 
in any language. 

Another adventure, which had nearly cost James his life, is said 
to have taken place at the village of Cramond, near Edinburgh, 
where he had rendered his addresses acceptable to a pretty girl of 
the lower rank. Four or five persons, whether relations or lovers 



r:-:z l.oy j? ::-:: 1a::z. 2, * 

c: Lis tt-is::ess t* urtcrrtair.. beset t'te disguised -tetter/.-.. :.s he 
returned from his rendezvous. Naturally gall 2: it, md an a imir- 
able master of his weapon, the king took post on the high and nar- 
row hridge over the Almond river, and defended hires : If 
with his sword. A peasant, who was thrashing in a neagMi rail ■ 
bain, came ont npon the noise, and. whether moved by compas- 
sion or by natural gallantry, took the weaker side, and laid about 
with his flail so effectually, as to disperse the assailants, well 
threshed, even according to the letter. He then : Qm 

king into his barn, where his guest requested a basin 1 
to remove the stains of the broiL This being procured with diffi- 
culty, James employed himself in learning what was the summit of 
bis deliverer's earthly wishes, and four, i 

by the desire of possessing, in property, the farm of Braehead, upon 
which he laboured as a bondsman. The lands chanced to be I : 
the crown ; and James directed him to come to the palace of Holy- 
rood, and enquire for the Guidman (1. e. farmer) of Ball 
name by which he was known in his excursions, and which ans- 
wered to the R Btmdocani of Harouii Alraschid. He | resei 
himself accordingly, and found, with due astonishment 
saved his monarch's life, and that he was to be gratified with a 
crown-charter of the lands of Braehead, under : pre- 

senting a ewer, basin, and towel, for the king to wash his ha 
when he shall happen to pass the ri ge ra 7 is per- 

?-::t ■•;,, ;,-..;; ;; -~ ;:':..;- H. ->;r.s ::' r :.-.:':.:.".;. ;:\ M:.i-L ; t'.viitt. a 
respectable family, who continue to hold the lands (now passed 
into the female hue) under the same tenure. 1 

Another of James's frolics is thus narrated by Mr. Campbell. 
from the Statistical Account : — " Being once benighted whe d 
a-hunting. and separated from his attendants. : : titer 

a cottage in the midst of a moor, at the foot of the Ochil hills, near 
Alloa, where, unknown, he was kindly received. In order to re- 
gale their unexpected guest, the gudtman \i. e. landlord, farmer) 
desired the ffudetcife to fetch the hen that roosted nearest the t 
which is always the plumpest, for the stranger s supper. The 
highly pleased with his night's lodging and hospital. 



1 [The reader will find this a 
the addition in particular of the king being recognised, like the 
Fita-James of the Lady of the Lake, by being the 0: 
covered- in the First Series of 1 

37. The heir of Braehead discharged his duty at the banc 
to King George IV. in the Parliament House at Edir. 

. ;: - 



278 APPENDIX TO 

ment, told mine host, at parting, that he should be glad to return 
his civility, and requested that the first time he came to Stirling he 
would call at the castle, and enquire for the Gudeman of Ballen- 
guich. Donaldson, the landlord, did not fail to call on the Gude- 
man of Ballenguich, when his astonishment at finding that the king 
had been his guest afforded no small amusement to the merry 
monarch and his courtiers ; and, to carry on the pleasantry, he was 
thenceforth designated by James with the title of King of the 
Moors, which name and designation have descended from father 
to son ever since, and they have continued in possession of the 
identical spot, the property of Mr. Erskine of Mar, till very lately, 
when this gentleman, with reluctance, turned out the descendant 
and representative of the King of the Moors, on account of his 
majesty's invincible indolence, and great dislike to reform or inno- 
vation of any kind, although, from the spirited example of his 
neighbour tenants on the same estate, he is convinced similar exer- 
tion would promote his advantage." 

The author requests permission yet farther to verify the subject 
of his poem, by an extract from the genealogical work of Buchanan 
of Auchmar, upon Scottish surnames. 

"This John Buchanan of Auchmar and Arnpryor was after- 
wards termed King of Kippen,i upon the following account : King 
James V., a very sociable, debonair prince, residing at Stirling, in 
Buchanan of Arnpryor's time, carriers were very frequently pass- 
ing along the common road, being near Arnpryor's house, with 
necessaries for the use of the king's family ; and he, having some 
extraordinary occasion, ordered one of these carriers to leave his 
load at his house, and he would pay him for it ; which the earner 
refused to do, telling him he was the king's carrier, and his load 
for his majesty's use ; to which Arnpryor seemed to have small 
regard, compelling the carrier, in the end, to leave his load ; tell- 
ing him, if King James was King of Scotland, he was King of 
Kippen, so that it was reasonable he should share with his neigh- 
bour king in some of these loads, so frequently carried that road. 
The carrier representing this usage, and telling the story, as An> 
pryor spoke it, to some of the king's servants, it came at length to 
his majesty's ears, who, shortly thereafter, with a few attendants, 
came to visit his neighbour king, who was in the mean time at din- 
ner. King James having sent a servant to demand access, was 
denied the same by a tall fellow with a battle-axe, who stood por- 
ter at the gate, telling, there could be no access till dinner was 



i A small district of Perthshire. 



THE LADY OP THE LAKE. 279 

over. This answer not satisfying the king, he sent to demand 
access a second time ; upon which he was desired by the porter to 
desist, otherwise he would find cause to repent his rudeness. His 
majesty finding this method would not do, desired the porter to tell 
his master that the Goodman of Ballnageigh desired to speak with 
the King of Kippen. The porter telling Arnpryor so much, he, 
in all humble manner, came and received the king, and having 
entertained him with much sumptuousness and jollity, became so 
agreeable to King James, that he allowed him to take so much of 
any provision he found carrying that road as he had occasion for ; 
and seeing he made the first visit, desired Arnpryor in a few days 
to return him a second to Stirling, which he performed, and con- 
tinued in very much favour with the king, always thereafter being 
termed King of Kippen while he lived." — Buchanan's Essay upon 
the Family of Buchanan. Edin. 1775, 8vo, p. 74. 

The readers of Ariosto must give credit for the amiable features 
with which he is represented, since he is generally considered a3 
the prototype of Zerbino, the most interesting hero of the Orlando 
Furioso. 



Note 3 W. 



• Stirling's tower 



Of yore, the name of Snowdoun claims.^-F. 201. 

William of Worcester, who wrote about the middle of the fif- 
teenth century, calls Stirling Castle, Snowdoun. Sir David Lind- 
say bestows the same epithet upon it in his Complaint of the Pa- 
pingo: 

" Adieu, fair Snawdoun, with thy towers high, 
Thy chapel-royal, park, and table round ; 
May, June, and July, would I dwell in thee, 
Were I a man, to hear the birdis sound, 
Whilk doth againe thy royal rock rebound." 

Mr. Chalmers, in his late excellent edition of Sir David Lind- 
say's works, has refuted the chimerical derivation of Snawdoun 
from snedding, or cutting. It was probably derived from the ro- 
mantic legend which connected Stirling with King Arthur, to 
which the mention of the Round Table gives countenance. The 
ring within which justs were formerly practised, in the castle park, 
is still called the Round Table. Snawdoun is the official title of 



280 APPENDIX TO THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 

one of the Scottish heralds, whose epithets seem in all countries to 
have been fantastically adopted from ancient history or romance. 

It appears from the preceding note, that the real name by which 
James was actually distinguished in his private excursions, was the 
Goodman ofBatlenguich ; derived from a steep pass leading up to 
the Castle of Stirling, so called. But the epithet would not have 
suited poetry, and would besides at once, and prematurely, have 
announced the plot to many of my countrymen, among whom the. 
traditional stories above mentioned are still current. 



END OF NOTES TO TH* LADY OF THE LAKE. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



[ 283 ] 



MASSACRE OF GLENCOE.' 



" O tell me, Harper, wherefore flow 
Thy wayward notes of wail and woe 
Far down the desert of Glencoe, 

Where none may list their melody ? 

1 [The following succinct account of this too celebrated event, 
maybe sufficient for this place : — 

" In the beginning of the year 16*92, an action of unexampled 
barbarity disgraced the government of King William III. in Scot- 
land. In the August preceding, a proclamation had been issued, 
offering an indemnity to such insurgents as should take the oaths 
to the King and Queen, on or before the last day of December ; 
and the chiefs of such tribes as had been in arms for James, soon 
after took advantage of the proclamation. But Macdonald of 
Glencoe was prevented by accident, rather than design, from ten- 
dering his submission within the limited time. In the end of 
December he went to Colonel Hill, who commanded the garrison 
in Fort William, to take the oaths of allegiance to the govern- 
ment ; and the latter having furnished him with a letter to Sir 
Colin Campbell, Sheriff of the county of Argyll, directed him to 
repair immediately to Inverary, to make his submission in a legal 



i [First published in Thomson's Select Melodies, 1814.] 



284 THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE. 

Say, harp'st thou to the mists that fly, 
Or to the dun deer glancing by, 
Or to the eagle that from high, 

Screams chorus to thy minstrelsy ?" — 

manner before that magistrate. But the way to Inverary lay 
through almost impassable mountains, the season was extremely 
rigorous, and the whole country was covered with a deep snow. So 
eager, however, was Macdonald to take the oaths before the limited 
time should expire, that, though the road lay within half a mile of 
his own house, he stopped not to visit his family, and, after various 
obstructions, arrived at Inverary. The time had elapsed, and the 
sheriff hesitated to receive his submission ; but Macdonald pre- 
vailed by his importunities, and even tears, in inducing that func- 
tionary to administer to him the oath of allegiance, and to certify 
the cause of his delay. At this time Sir John Dalrymple, after- 
wards Earl of Stair, being in attendance upon William as Secre- 
tary of State for Scotland, took advantage of Macdonald's neglect- 
ing to take the oath within the time prescribed, and procured from 
the King a warrant of military execution against that chief and his 
whole clan. This was done at the instigation of the Earl of Bread- 
albane, whose lands the Glencoe men had plundered, and whose 
treachery to government in negotiating with the Highland clans, 
Macdonald himself had exposed. The King was accordingly per- 
suaded that Glencoe was the main obstacle to the pacification of 
the Highlands ; and the fact of the unfortunate chief's submission 
having been concealed, the sanguinary orders for proceeding to 
military execution against his clan were in consequence obtained. 
The warrant was both signed and countersigned by the King's own 
hand, and the Secretary urged the officers who commanded in the 
Highlands to execute their orders with the utmost rigour. Camp- 
bell of Glenlyon, a captain in Argyll's regiment, and two subal- 
terns, were ordered to repair to Glencoe on the first of February 
with a hundred and twenty men. Campbell being uncle to young 
Macdonald's wife, was received by the father with all manner of 
friendship and hospitality. The men were lodged at free quarters 
in the houses of his tenants, and received the kindest entertain- 
ment. Till the 13th of the month the troops lived in the utmost 
harmony and familiarity with the people ; and on the very night 
of the massacre, the officers passed the evening at cards in Macdo- 
nald's house. In the night, Lieutenant Lindsay, with a party of 
soldiers, called in a friendly manner at his door, and was instantly 
admitted. Macdonald, while in the act of rising to receive his 
guest, was shot dead through tho back with two bullets. His wife 



THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE. 285 

" No, not to these, for they have rest, — 
The mist-wreath has the mountain-crest, 
The stag his lair, the erne her nest, 

Abode of lone security. 
But those for whom I pour the lay, 
. Not wild-wood deep, nor mountain grey, 
Not this deep dell, that shrouds from day. 

Could screen from treach'rous cruelty. 

" Their flag was furl'd, and mute their drum, 
The very household dogs were dumb, 
Unwont to bay at guests that come 

In guise of hospitality. 
His blithest notes the piper plied, 
Her gayest snood the maiden tied, 
The dame her distaff flung aside, 

To tend her kindlv housewiferv. 



had already dressed ; but she was stripped naked by the soldiers, 
who tore the rings off her fingers with their teeth. The slaughter 
now became general, and neither age nor infirmity was spared. 
Some women, in defending their children, were killed : boys 
imploring mercy were shot dead by officers on whose knees they 
hung. In one place nine persons, as they sat enjoying themselves 
at table, were butchered by the soldiers. In Inverriggon, Camp- 
bell's own quarters, nine men were first bound by the soldiers, and 
then shot at intervals, one by one. Nearly forty persons were 
massacred by the troops ; and several who fled to the mountains 
perished by famine and the inclemency of the season. Those who 
escaped owed their lives to a tempestuous night. Lieutenant- 
Colonel Hamilton, who had received the charge of the execution 
from Dalryraple, was on his march with four hundred men, to 
guard all the passes from the valley of Glencoe ; but he was obli- 
ged to stop by the severity of the weather, which proved the safety 
of the unfortunate clan. Next day he entered the valley, laid the 
houses in ashes, and carried away the cattle and spoil, which were 
divided among the officers and soldiers."— Article "Britain;" 
Encyc. Britannica—New edition.'] 



286 THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE. 

" The hand that mingled in the meal, 
At midnight drew the felon steel, 
And gave the host's kind breast to feel 

Meed for his hospitality ! 
The friendly hearth which warm'd that hand, 
At midnight arm'd it with the brand, 
That bade destruction's flames expand 

Their red and fearful blazonry. 

" Then woman's shriek was heard in vain, 

Nor infancy's unpitied plain, 

More than the warrior's groan, could gain 

Respite from ruthless butchery ! 
The winter wind that whistled shrill, 
The snows that night that cloked the hill, 
Though wild and pitiless, had still 

Far more than Southron clemency. 

" Long have my harp's best notes been gone, 
Few are its strings, and faint their tone, 
They can but sound in desert lone 

Their grey-hair'd master's misery. 
Were each grey hair a minstrel string, 
Each chord should imprecations fling, 
Till startled Scotland loud should ring, 

'Revenge for blood and treachery V " 



[ 287 } 

FAREWELL TO MACKENZIE, 
HIGH CHIEF OF KIXTAIL. 

FROM THE GAELIC. 
(1815.) 



The original verses are arranged to a beautiful Gaelic air, 
of which the chorus is adapted to the double pull upon the 
oars of a galley, and which is therefore distinct from tJie 
ordinary jorrams, or boat songs. They were composed 
by the Family Bard upon the departure of tlie Earl of 
Seaforth, who teas obliged to take refuge in Spain, after 
an unsuccessfd effort at insurrection in favour of the 
Stuart family, in the year 1718. 

Farewell to Mackenneth, great Earl of the North, 
The Lord of Lochcarron, Glenshiel, and Seaforth ; 
To the Chieftain this morning his course who began, 
Launching forth on the billows his bark like a swan. 
For a far foreign land he has hoisted his sail. 
Farewell to Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail ! 

O swift be the galley, and hardy her crew, 
May her captain be skilful, her mariners true, 
In danger undaunted, unwearied by toil, 
Though the whirlwind should rise, and the ocean should 
boil : 



288 FAREWELL TO MACKENZIE. 

On the brave vessel's gunnel I drank his bonail, 1 
And farewell to Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail ! 

Awake in thy chamber, thou sweet southland gale ! 
Like the sighs of his people, breathe soft on his sail ; 
Be prolong'd as regret, that his vassals must know, 
Be fair as their faith, and sincere as their woe : 
Be so soft, and so fair, and so faithful, sweet gale, 
Wafting onward Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail ! 

Be his pilot experienced, and trusty, and wise, 
To measure the seas and to study the skies : 
May he hoist all his canvass from streamer to deck, 
But O ! crowd it higher when wafting him back — 
Till the cliffs of Skooroora, and Conan's glad vale, 
Shall welcome Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail ! 



IMITATION 
OF THE PRECEDING SONG. 2 

So sung the old Bard, in the grief of his heart, 
When he saw his loved Lord from his people depart. 

1 Bonail, or Bonallez, the old Scottish phrase for a feast at parting 
with a friend. 

2 [These verses were written shortly after the death of Lord 
SeafOrth, the last male representative of his illustrious house. He 
was a nobleman of extraordinary talents, who must have made for 
himself a lasting reputation, had not his political exertions been 
checked by the painful natural infirmities alluded to in the fourth 
stanza.] 



LAMENT FOR MACKENZIE. 289 

Now mute on thy mountains, O Albyn, are heard 
Nor the voice of the song, nor the harp of the bard ; 
Or its strings are but waked by the stern winter gale, 
As they mourn for Mackenzie, last Chief of Kintail. 

From the far Southland Border a Minstrel came forth, 
And he waited the hour that some Bard of the north 
His hand on the harp of the ancient should cast, 
And bid its wild numbers mix high with the blast •, 
But no bard was there left in the land of the Gael, 
To lament for Mackenzie, last Chief of Kintail. 

And shalt thou then sleep, did the Minstrel exclaim, 
Like the son of the lowly, unnoticed by fame ? 
No, son of Fitzgerald ! in accents of woe, 
The song thou hast loved o'er thy coffin shall flow, 
And teach thy wild mountains to join in the wail, 
That laments for Mackenzie, last Chief of Kintail. 

In vain, the bright course of thy talents to wrong, 
Fate deaden'd thine ear and imprison'd thy tongue ; 
For brighter o'er all her obstructions arose 
The glow of the genius they could not oppose ; 
And who in the land of the Saxon or Gael, 
Might match with Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail ? 

Thy sons rose around thee in light and in love, 
All a father could hope, all a friend could approve ; 

What 'vails it the tale of thy sorrows to tell, 

In the spring-time of youth and of promise they fell ! 
Of the line of Fitzgerald remains not a male, 
To bear the proud name of the Chief of Kintail. 



290 LAMENT FOR MACKENZIE. 

And thou, gentle Dame, who must bear to thy grief, 
For thy clan and thy country the cares of a Chief, 
Whom brief rolling moons in six changes have left, 
Of thy husband, and father, and brethren bereft, 
To thine ear of affection, how sad is the hail, 
That salutes thee the Heir of the line of Kintail I 1 



WAR-SONG OF LACHLAN, 
HIGH CHIEF OF MACLEAN. 

FROM THE GAELIC. 



This song appears to be imperfect, or, at least, like many of 
tlie early Gaelic poems, makes a rapid transition from one 
subject to another ; from the situation, namely, of one of 
the daughters of the clan, who opens the song by lamenting 
tlie absence of her lover, to an eulogium over the military 
glories of tlie Chieftain, The translator has endeavoured 
to imitate tlie abrupt style of the original. 



A weary month has wander'd o'er 
Since last we parted on the shore ; 
Heaven ! that I saw thee, Love, once more, 
Safe on that shore again ! — 

1 [The Honourable Lady Hood, daughter of the last Lord Seaforth, 
widow of Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, now Mrs. Stewart Mackenzie 
of Seaforth and Glasserton, 1833.] 



WAR-SONG OF LACHLAN. 29 I 

'Twas valiant Lachlan gave the word : 
Lachlan, of many galley lord : 
He call'd his kindred bands on board, 
And launch'd them on the main. 

Clan-Gillian 1 is to ocean gone ; 
Clan-Gillian, fierce in foray known ; 
Rejoicing in the glory won 

In many a bloody broil : 
For wide is heard the thundering fray, 
The rout, the ruin, the dismay, 
When from the twilight glens away 

Clan-Gillian drives the spoil. 

Woe to the hills that shall rebound 

Our banner'd bag-pipes' maddening sound ; 

Clan- Gillian's onset echoing round, 

Shall shake their inmost cell. 
Woe to the bark whose crew shall gaze, 
Where Lachlan 's silken streamer plays ! 
The fools might face the lightning's blaze 

As wisely and as well ! 

i i. e. The clan of Maclean, literally the race of Gillian. 



I 292 J 
PIBROCH OF DONALD DHU. 

Air — " Piobair of Donuil Dhuidh" 1 



This is a very ancient pibroch belonging to Clan MacDonald, 
and supposed to refer to the expedition of Donald Bollock, 
who, in 1431, launched from the Isles with a considerable 
force, invaded Lochaber, and at Inverlochy defeated and 
put to flight the Earls of Mar and Caithness, though at 
the head of an army superior to his own. The words of 
the set, theme, or melody, to which the pipe variations are 
applied, run thus in Gaelic :— 

Piobaireachd Dhonuil Dhuidh, piobaireachd Dhonuil ; 
Piobaireachd Dhonuil Dhuidh, piobaireachd Dhonuil ; 
Piobaireachd Dhonuil Dhuidh, piobaireachd Dhonuil ; 
Piob agus bratach air faiche Inrerlochi. 
The pipe-summons of Donald the Black, 
The pipe-summons of Donald the Black, 

The war-pipe and the pennon are on the gathering-place at Inver- 
lochy.2 



Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, 

Pibroch of Donuil, 
Wake thy wild voice anew, 

Summon Clan-Conuil. 
Come away, come away, 

Hark to the summons ! 
Come in your war array, 

Gentles and commons. 

1 " The pibroch of Donald the Black." [This song was written 
for Campbell's Albyn's Anthology, 1816. It may also be seen, set 
to music, in Thomson's Collection, 1830.] 

2 [Compare this with the gathering-song in the third canto of the 
Lady of the Lake, ante.'} 



PIBROCH OF DONALD DHU. 293 

Come from deep glen, and 

From mountain so rocky, 
The war-pipe and pennon 

Are at Inverlocky. 
Come every hill-plaid, and 

True heart that wears one, 
Come every steel blade, and 

Strong hand that bears one. 
Leave untended the herd, 

The flock without shelter ; 
Leave the corpse uninterr'd, 

The bride at the altar ; 
Leave the deer, leave the steer, 

Leave nets and barges : 
Come with your fighting gear, 

Broadswords and targes. 

Come as the winds come, when 

Forests are rended ; 
Come as the waves come, when 

Navies are stranded : 
Faster come, faster come, 

Faster and faster, 
Chief, vassal, page and groom, 

Tenant and master. 
Fast they come, fast they come ; 

See how they gather ! 
Wide waves the eagle plume, 

Blended with heather. 
Cast your plaids, draw your blades, 

Forward each man set ! 
Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, 

Knell for the onset ! 



[294 ] 



MACGREGOR'S GATHERING. 

Air—" Thain' a Grigalach."* 

WRITTEN FOR ALBYN'S ANTHOLOGY, 

[1816.] 



T/iese verses are adapted to a very wild, yet lively gathering- 
tune, used by the MacGregors. The severe treatment of 
this Clan, their outlawry, and the proscription of their very 
name, are alluded to in the Ballad? 



The moon's on the lake, and the mist's on the brae, 
And the Clan has a name that is nameless by day ; 

Then gather, gather, gather Grigalach ! 

Gather, gather, gather, &c. 

Our signal for fight, that from monarchs we drew, 
Must be heard but by night in our vengeful haloo ! 

Then haloo, Grigalach ! haloo, Grigalach ! 

Haloo, haloo, haloo, Grigalach, &c, 

1 " The MacGregor is come." 

2 [For the history of the, clan, see Introduction to Rob Ro, 
Waverley Novels, vol. vii.] 



macgregor's gathering. 295 

Glen Orchy's proud mountains, Coalchuirn and her 

towers, 
Glenstrae and Glenlyon no longer are ours ; 

We're landless, landless, landless, Grigalach ! 

Landless, landless, landless, &c. 

But doom'd and devoted by vassal and lord, 
MacGregor has still both his heart and his sword ! 

Then courage, courage, courage, Grigalach ! 

Courage, courage, courage, &c. 

If they rob us of name, and pursue us with beagles, 
Give their roofs to the flame, and their flesh to the 
eagles ! 

Then vengeance, vengeance, vengeance, Grigalach ! 

Vengeance, vengeance, vengeance, &c. 

While there's leaves in the forest, and foam on the 
river, 

MacGregor, despite them, shall flourish for ever ! 
Come then, Grigalach, come then, Grigalach, 
Come then, come then, come then, &c. 

Through the depths of Loch Katrine the steed shall 

career, 
O'er the peak of Ben-Lomond the galley shall steer, 
And the rocks of Craig Royston 1 like icicles melt, 
Ere our wrongs be forgot, or our vengeance unfelt ! 

Then gather, gather, gather, Grigalach ! 

Gather, gather, gather, &c. 

i [" Rob Roy MacGregor's own designation was of Innersnaid ; 
but he appears to have acquired a right of some kind or other to the 
property or possession of Craig Royston, a domain of rock and 
forest, lying on the east side of Loch Lomond, where that beauti- 
ful lake stretches into the dusky mountains of Glenfalloch."— In- 
troduction to Rob Roy. Waverley Novels, vol. Yii. p. 31.] 



f 296 J 



DONALD CAIRD'S COME AGAIN.' 

Am—" Malcolm CaircCs come again." 2 



CHORUS. 

Donald CaircTs come again / 
Donald Caird^s come again ! 
Tell the news in brugh and glen, 
Donald Caird^s come again ! 

Donald Caird can lilt and sing, 
Blithely dance the Hieland fling, 
Drink till the gudeman be blind, 
Fleech till the gudewife be kind ; 
Hoop a leglin, clout a pan, 
Or crack a pow wi' ony man ; 
Tell the news in brugh and glen, 
Donald Caird's come again. 

Donald Caird's come again ! 
Donald Caird^s come again ! 
Tell the news in brugh and glen, 
Donald Caird's come again ! 

J [Written for Albyn's Anthology, vol. ii., 1818, and set to music 
in Mr. Thomson's Collection in 1822.] 
2 Caird signifies Tinker. 



DONALD CAIRD'S COME AGAIN. 2i)7 

Donald Caird can wire a maukin, 
Kens the wiles o' dun-deer staukin, 
Leisters kipper, makes a shift 
To shoot a muir-fowl in the drift ; 
Water-bailiffs, rangers, keepers, 
He can wauk when they are sleepers ; 
Not for bountith or reward 
Dare ye mell wi' Donald Caird. 

Donald Caird^s come again ! 
Donald Caird's come again ! 
Gar the bagpipes hum amain, 
Donald Caird" 1 s come again. 

Donald Caird can drink a gill 
Fast as hostler- wife can fill; 
Ilka ane that sells gude liquor 
Kens how Donald bends a bicker ; 
When he's fou he's stout and saucy, 
Keeps the cantle of the cawsey ; 
Highland chief and Lawland laird 
Maun gie room to Donald Caird ! 

Donald Caird^s come again ! 
Donald Caird^s come again ! 
Tell the news in brugh and glen, 
Donald Caird^s come again. 

Steek the amrie, lock the kist, 
Else some gear may weel be mist ; 
Donald Caird finds orra things 
Where Allan Gregor fand the tings ; 
Dunts of kebbuck, taits of woo, 
Whiles a hen and whiles a sow, 
u 



298 DONALD CAIRD'S COME AGAIN. 

Webs or duds frae hedge or yard — 
'Ware the wuddie, Donald Caird ! 

Donald Caircfs come again ! 
Donald Caird's come again ! 
Dinna let the Shirra ken 
Donald Caird's come again. 

On Donald Caird the doom was stern, 
Craig to tether, legs to aim ; 
But Donald Caird, wi' mickle study, 
Caught the gift to cheat the wuddie ; 
Rings of aim, and bolts of steel, 
Fell like ice frae hand and heel ! 
Watch the sheep in fauld and glen, 
Donald Caird's come again. 

Donald Caird' 's come again ! 
Donald Caird's come again ! 
Dinna let the Justice hen, 
Donald Caird's come again ! 1 

1 [Mr. D. Thomson, of Galashiels, produced a parody on this 
song at an annual dinner of the manufacturers there, which Sir 
Walter Scott usually attended ; and the Poet was highly amused 
with a sly allusion to his two-fold character of Sheriff of Selkirk- 
shire, and author-suspect of " Rob Roy," in the chorus,— 

" Think ye, does the Shirra ken 

Rob M* Gregorys come again f "] 



[ 299 ] 
MACKEIMMON'S LAMENT. 1 

Air—" Cha till mi tuille"^ 



Mackrimmon, hereditary piper to the Laird of Macleod, 
is said to have composed this Lament when the Clan 
was about to depart upon a distant and dangerous ex- 
pedition. The Minstrel was impressed with a belief, 
which the event verified, that he was to be slain in the 
approaching feud ; and hence the Gaelic words, " Cha 
till mi tuille ; ged thillis Macleod, cha till Mackrimmon" 
" I shall never return ; although Macleod returns, yet 
Mackrimmon shall never return ! " The piece is but 
too well known, from its being the strain with which 
the emigrants from the West Highlands and Isles 
usually take leave of their native shore. 



Macleod's wizard flag from the grey castle sallies, 
The rowers are seated, unmoor 'd are the galleys ; 
Gleam war-axe and broadsword, clang target and quiver, 
As Mackrimmon sings, " Farewell to Dun vegan for ever ! 
Farewell to each cliff, on which breakers are foaming ; 
Farewell, each dark glen, in which red-deer are roam- 
ing ; 

1 [Written for Albyn's Anthology, vol. ii. 1818.] 

2 « We return no more." 



300 mackrimmon's lament. 

Farewell, lonely Skye, to lake, mountain, and river ; 
Macleod may return, but Mackrimmon shall never ! 

Farewell the bright clouds that on Quillan are sleeping ; 
Farewell the bright eyes in the Dun that are weeping ; 
To each minstrel delusion, farewell— and for ever — 
Mackrimmon departs, to return to you never ! 
The Banshee's wild voice sings the death-dirge before me, 1 
The pall of the dead for a mantle hangs o'er me ; 
But my heart shall not flag, and my nerves shall not 

shiver, 
Though devoted I go — to return again never ! 

" Too oft shall the notes of Mackrimmon 's bewailing 
Be heard when the Gael on their exile are sailing ; 
Dear land ! to the shores, whence unwilling we sever, 
Return — return — return shall we never ! 

Cha till, cha till, cha till sin tuille ! 

Cha till, cha till, cha till sin tuille, 

Cha till, cha till, cha till sin tuille, 

Gea thillis Macleod, cha till Mackrimmon ! " 



LULLABY OF AN INFANT CHIEF. 

Air— " Cadulgu lo." 2 

I. 

O, hush thee, my babie, thy sire was a knight, 
Thy mother a lady, both lovely and bright ; 

J [See a note on Banshee, Lady of the Lake.] 
2 " Sleep on till day." These words, adapted to a melody some- 
what different from the original, are sung in my friend Mr. Terry's 
drama of "Guy Mannering." [The "Lullaby" was first printed 
in Mr. Terry's drama : it was afterwards set to music in Thomson's 
Collection, 1822.] 



LULLABY. 301 

The woods and the glens from the towers which we see, 
They all are belonging, dear babie, to thee. 

ho ro, i ri ri, cadul gu lo, 

O ho ro, i ri ri, &c. 

II. 

fear not the bugle, though loudly it blows, 
It calls but the warders that guard thy repose ; 
Their bows would be bended, their blades would be red, 
Ere the step of a foeman draws near to thy bed., 
O ho ro, i ri ri, &c. 

III. 

O, hush thee, my babie, the time soon will come, 
When thy sleep shall be broken by trumpet and drum ; 
Then hush thee, my darling, take rest while you may, 
For strife comes with manhood, and waking with day. 
O ho ro, i ri ri, &c. 



THE 

DANCE OF DEATH.' 
I. 

Night and morning 2 were at meeting 

Over Waterloo ; 
Cocks had sung their earliest greeting ; 

Faint and low they crew, 

1 [Originally published in 1815, in the Edinburgh Annual Re- 
gister, vol. v.] 

2 [MS. — " Dawn and darkness."") 



302 DANCE OF DEATH. 

For no paly beam yet shone 
On the heights of Mount Saint John ; 
Tempest-clouds prolong'd the sway 
Of timeless darkness over day ; 
Whirlwind, thunder-clap, and shower, 
Mark'd it a predestined hour. 
Broad and frequent through the night 
Flash'd the sheets of levin-light ; 
Muskets, glancing lightnings back, 
Show'd the dreary bivouack 

Where the soldier lay, 
Chill and stiff, and drench 'd with rain, 
Wishing dawn of morn again, 

Though death should come with day. 

II. 

'Tis at such a tide and hour, 
Wizard, witch, and fiend, have power, 
And ghastly forms through mist and shower 

Gleam on the gifted ken ; 
And then the affrighted prophet's ear 
Drinks whispers strange of fate and fear 
Presaging death and ruin near 

Among the sons of men ;— , 
Apart from Albyn's war-array, 
'Twas then grey Allan sleepless lay ; 
Grey Allan, who, for many a day, 

Had follow'd stout and stern, 
Where, through battle's rout and reel, 
Storm of shot and hedge of steel, 
Led the grandson of Lochiel, 

Valiant Fassiefern. 
Through steel and shot he leads no more, 



DANCE OF DEATH. 303 

Low laid 'mid friends' and foemen's gore — 
But long his native lake's wild shore, 
And Sunart rough, and high Ardgower, 

And Morven long shall tell, 
And proud Bennevis hear with awe, 
How, upon bloody Quatre-Bras, 
Brave Cameron heard the wild hurra 

Of conquest as he fell. 

III. 

'Lone on the outskirts of the host, 

The weary sentinel held post, 

And heard, through darkness far aloof, 

The frequent clang 1 of courser's hoof, 

Where held the cloak'd patrol their course, 

And spurr'd 'gainst storm the swerving horse ; 

But there are sounds in Allan's ear, 

Patrol nor sentinel may hear, 

And sights before his eye aghast 

Invisible to them have pass'd, 

When down the destined plain, 
'Twixt Britain and the bands of France, 
Wild as marsh-borne meteors glance, 
Strange phantoms wheel'd a revel dance, 

And doom'd the future slain 

Such forms were seen, such sounds were heard, 
When Scotland's James his march prepared 

For Flodden's fatal plain ; 2 
Such, when he drew his ruthless sword, 
As Choosers of the Slain, adored 

The yet unchristen'd Dane. 



i [MS.—" Oft came the clang," &c] 

2 [See Marmion, canto v., stanzas 24, 25, 26, and the Notes. 1 



304 DANCE OF DEATH. 

An indistinct and phantom band, 

They wheel'd their ring-dance hand in hand, 

With gestures wild and dread ; 
The Seer, who watch" d them ride the storm, 
Saw through their faint and shadowy form 

The lightnings flash more red ; 
And still their ghastly roundelay 
Was of the coming battle-fray, 

And of the destined dead. 

IV. 

Wheel the wild dance 
While lightnings glance, 

And thunders rattle loud, 
And call the brave 
To bloody grave, 

To sleep without a shroud. 

Our airy feet, 
So light and fleet, 

They do not bend the rye 
That sinks its head when whirlwinds rave, 
And swells again in eddying wave, 

As each wild gust blows by ; 
But still the corn, 
At dawn of morn, 

Our fatal steps that bore, 
At eve lies waste, 
A trampled paste 

Of blackening mud and gore. 

V. 

Wheel the wild dance 
While lightnings glance, 



DANCE OF DEATH. 305 

And thunders rattle loud, 
And call the brave 
To bloody grave, 

To sleep without a shroud. 

Wheel the wild dance ! 
Brave sons of France, 

For you our ring makes room •, 
Make space full wide 
For martial pride, 

For banner, spear, and plume. 
Approach, draw near. 
Proud cuirassier ! 

Room for the men of steel ! 
Through crest and plate 
The broadsword's weight 

Both head and heart shall feel. 

VI. 

Wheel the wild dance 
While lightnings glance, 

And thunders rattle loud, 
And call the brave 
To bloody grave, 

To sleep without a shroud. 

Sons of the spear ! 
You feel us near 

In many a ghastly dream ; 
With fancy's eye 
Our forms you spy, 

And hear our fatal scream. 
With clearer sight 
Ere falls the night, 
X 



306 DANCE OF DEATH. 

Just when to weal or woe 
Your disembodied souls take flight 
On trembling wing — each startled sprite 

Our choir of death shall know. 

VII. 

Wheel the wild dance 
While lightnings glance, 

And thunders rattle loud, 
And call the brave 
To bloody grave, 

To sleep without a shroud. 

Burst, ye clouds, in tempest showers, 
Redder rain shall soon be ours — 

See the east grows wan — 
Yield we place to sterner game, 
Ere deadlier bolts and direr flame 
Shall the welkin's thunders shame ; 
Elemental rage is tame 

To the wrath of man. 

VIII. 

At morn, grey Allan's mates with awe 
Heard of the vision'd sights he saw, 

The legend heard him say ; 
But the Seer's gifted eye was dim, 
Deafen'd his ear, and stark his limb, 

Ere closed that bloody day — 
He sleeps far from his Highland heath, — 
But often of the Dance of Death 

His comrades tell the tale, 
On picquet-post, when ebbs the night, 
And waning watch-fire3 glow less bright, 

And dawn is glimmering pale. 



[ 307 ] 



THE 

SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS; 1 

OR, 

THE QUEST OF SULTAUN SOLIMAUN. 

WRITTEN IN 1817. 



1. 

O, for a glance of that gay Muse's eye, 

That lighten'd on Bandello's laughing tale, 
And twinkled with a lustre shrewd and sly, 

When Giam Battista bade her vision hail ! — 2 

Yet fear not ladies, the naive detail 
Given by the natives of that land canorous ; 

Italian license loves to leap the pale, 
We Britons have the fear of shame before us, 
And, if not wise in mirth, at least must be decorous. 

2. 
In the far eastern clime, no great while since, 
Lived Sultaun Solimaun, a mighty prince, 

1 [First published in "The Sale Room, No. V.," February I, 
1817-] 

2 The hint of the following tale is taken from La Camiscia 3 fa- 
ff ica, a novel of Giam Battista Casti. 



308 THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS. 

Whose eyes, as oft as they perform'd their round, 
Beheld all others fix'd upon the ground ; 
Whose ears received the same unvaried phrase, 
" Sultaun ! thy vassal hears, and he obeys ! " 
All have their tastes — this may the fancy strike 
Of such grave folks as pomp and grandeur like ; 
For me, I love the honest heart and warm 
Of Monaich who can amble round his farm, 
Or, when the toil of state no more annoys, 
In chimney corner seek domestic joys — 
I love a prince will bid the bottle pass, 
Exchanging with his' subjects glance and glass ; 
In fitting time, can, gayest of the gay, 
Keep up the jest, and mingle in the lay — 
Such Monarchs best our free-born humours suit, 
But Despots must be stately, stern, and mute. 

3. 

This Solimaun, Serendib had in sway — 

And where's Serendib ? may some critic say 

Good lack, mine honest friend, consult the chart, 

Scare not my Pegasus before I start ! 

If Rennell has it not, you'll find, mayhap, 

The isle laid down in Captain Sinbad's map 

Famed mariner ! whose merciless narrations 
Drove every friend and kinsman out of patience, 
Till, fain to find a guest who thought them shorter, 
He deign'd to tell them over to a porter — * 
The last edition see, by Long, and Co., 
Rees, Hurst, and Orme, our fathers in the Row. 

4. 
Serendib found, deem not my tale a fiction — 
This Sultaun, whether lacking contradiction — 
i [See the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.] 



THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS. 209 

(A sort of stimulant which hath its uses, 
To raise the spirits and reform the juices, 
—Sovereign specific for all sorts of cures 
In my wife's practice, and perhaps in yours.) 
The Sultaun lacking this same wholesome bitter, 

Or cordial smooth for prince's palate fitter 

Or if some Mollah had hag-rid his dreams 
With Degial, Ginnistan, and such wild themes 
Belonging to the Mollah's subtile craft, 
I wot not — but the Sultaun never laugh'd, 
Scarce ate or drank, and took a melancholy 
That scorn'd all remedy profane or holy ; 
In his long list of melancholies, mad, 
Or mazed, or dumb, hath Burton none so bad. 1 



Physicians soon arrived, sage, ware, and tried, 
As e'er scrawl'd jargon in a darken 'd room ; 
With heedful glance the Sultaun's tongue they eyed, 
Peep'd in his bath, and God knows where beside, 

And then in solemn accent spoke their doom, 
" His majesty is very far from well." 
Then each to work with his specific fell : 
The Hakim Ibrahim instanter brought 
His unguent Mahazzim al Zerdukkaut, 
While Roompot, a practitioner more wily, 
Relied on his Munaskif al fillfily. 2 
More and yet more in deep array appear, 
And some the front assail, and some the rear ; 
Theii remedies to reinforce and vary, 



i [See Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.] 
2 For these hard words see D'Herbelot, or the learned editor of 
the Receipes of Avicenna. 



310 THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS. 

Came surgeon eke, and eke apothecary ; 

Till the tired Monarch, though of words grown chary, 

Yet dropt, to recompense their fruitless labour, 

Some hint about a bowstring or a sabre. 

There lack'd, I promise you, no longer speeches, 

To rid the palace of those learned leeches. 



Then was the council calPd — by their advice, 
(They deem'd the matter ticklish all, and nice, 

And sought to shift it off from their own shoulders,) 
Tartars and couriers in all speed were sent, 
To call a sort of Eastern Parliament 

Of feudatory chieftains and freeholders — 
Such have the Persians at this very day, 
My gallant Malcolm calls them couroultai ; x 
I'm not prepared to show in this slight song 

That to Serendib the same forms belong 

E'en let the learn'd go search, and tell me if I'm wrong. 

7. 
The Omrahs, 2 each with hand on scymitar, 
Gave, like Sempronius, still their voice for war — 
" The sabre of the Sultaun in its sheath 
Too long has slept, nor own'd the work of death ; 
Let the Tambourgi bid his signal rattle, 
Bang the loud gong, and raise the shout of battle I 
This dreary cloud that dims our sovereign's day, 
Shall from his kindled bosom flit away, 
When the bold Lootie wheels his courser round, 
And the arm'd elephant shall shake the ground. 



i See Sir John Malcolm's admirable History of Persia. 

2 Nobility. 



THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS. 

Each noble pants to own the glorious summons — 
And for the charges — Lo ! your faithful Commons ! v 
The Riots who attended in their places 

(Serendib language calls a farmer Riot) 
Look'd ruefully in one another's faces, 

From this oration auguring much disquiet, 
Double assessment, forage, and free quarters ; 
And fearing these as China-men the Tartars, 
Or as the whisker'd vermin fear the mousers, 
Each fumbled in the pocket of his trowsers. 



And next came forth the reverend Convocation, 

Bald heads, white beards, and many a turban green, 
Imaum and Mollah there of every station, 

Santon, Fakir, and Calendar were seen. 
Their votes were various — some advised a Mosque 

With fitting revenues should be erected, 
With seemly gardens and with gay Kiosque, 

To recreate a band of priests selected ; 
Others opined that through the realms a dole 

Be made to holy men, whose prayers might profit 
The SultaiuVs weal in body and in soul. 

But their long-headed chief, the Sheik Ul-Sofit, 
More closely touch'd the point ; — " Thy studious mood, 11 
Quoth he, " O Prince ! hath thicken'd all thy blood, 
And dull'd thy brain with labour beyond measure ; 
Wherefore relax a space and take thy pleasure, 
And toy with beauty, or tell o'er thy treasure ; 
From all the cares of state, my Liege, enlarge thee, 
And leave the burden to thy faithful clergy." 

9. 
These counsels sage availed not a whit, 
And so the patient (as it is not uncommon 



312 THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS. 

Where grave physicians lose their time and wit) 
Resolved to take advice of an old woman ; 

His mother she, a dame who once wa3 beauteous, 

And still was calPd so by each subject duteous. 

Now, whether Fatima was witch in earnest, 
Or only made believe, I cannot say — 

But she profess'd to cure disease the sternest, 
By dint of magic amulet or lay ; 

And, when all other skill in vain was shown, 

She deem'd it fitting time to use her own. 

10. 

" Sympatliia magica hath wonders done," 
(Thus did old Fatima bespeak her son,) 
" It works upon the fibres and the pores, 
And thus, insensibly, our health restores, 

And it must help us here Thou must endure 

The ill, my son, or travel for the cure. 

Search land and sea, and get, where'er you can, 

The inmost vesture of a happy man, 

I mean his shirt, my son ; which, taken warm 

And fresh from off his back, shall chase your harm, 

Bid every current of your veins rejoice, 

And your dull heart leap light as shepherd-boy's." 

Such was the counsel from his mother came ; — 

I know not if she had some under-game, 

As Doctors have, who bid their patients roam 

And live abroad, when sure to die at home ; 

Or if she thought, that, somehow or another, 

Queen-Regent sounded better than Queen-Mother ; 

But, says the Chronicle, (who will go look it,) 

That such was her advice — the Sultaun took it. 



THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS. 313 

11. 

All are on board— the Sultaun and his train, 
In gilded galley prompt to plough the main. 

The old Rais 1 was the first who questioned, " Whither?" 
They paused- — " Arabia," thought the pensive Prince, 
" Was call'd The Happy many ages since — 

For Mokha, Rais." — And they came safely thither. 
But not in Araby, with all her balm, 
Not where Judea weeps beneath her palm, 
Not in rich Egypt, nor in Nubian waste, 
Could there the step of happiness be traced. 
One Copt alone profess'd to have seen her smile, 
When Bruce his goblet fill'd at infant Nile : 
She bless'd the dauntless traveller as he quaff'd, 
But vanish'd from him with the ended draught. 

12. 
K Enough of turbans," said the weary King, 
" These dolimans of ours are not the thing : 
Try we the Giaours, these men of coat and cap, I 
Incline to think some of them must be happy ; 
At least, they have as fair a cause as any can, 
They drink good wine and keep no Ramazan. 
Then northward, ho !" — The vessel cuts the sea, 
And fair Italia lies upon her lee. — 
But fair Italia, she who once unfurl'd 
Her eagle-banners o'er a conquer'd world, 
Long from her throne of domination tumbled, 
Lay, by her quondam vassals, sorely humbled ; 
The Pope himself lookM pensive, pale, and lean, 
And was not half the man he once had been. 

1 Master of the vessel. 



314 THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS. 

66 While these the priest and those the noble fleeces, 

Our poor old boot," 1 they said, " is torn to pieces. 

Its tops 2 the vengeful claws of Austria feel, 

And the Great Devil is rending toe and heel. 3 

If happiness you seek, to tell you truly, 

We think she dwells with one Giovanni Bulli ; 

A tramontane, a heretic, — the buck, 

Poffaredio ! still has all the luck ; 

By land or ocean never strikes his flag — 

And then — a perfect walking money-bag." 

Off set our Prince to seek John Bull's abode, 

But first took France — it lay upon the road. 

13. 
Monsieur Baboon, after much late commotion, 
Was agitated like a settling ocean, 
Quite out of sorts, and could not tell what ail'd him, 
Only the glory of his house had fail'd him ; 
Besides, some tumours on his noddle biding, 
Gave indication of a recent hiding. 4 
Our Prince, though Sultans of such things are heedless, 
Thought it a thing indelicate and needless 

To ask, if at that moment he was happy. 
And Monsieur, seeing that he was oomme ilfatit, a 
Loud voice muster'd up, for " Vive le Roi /" 

Then whisper'd, * Ave you any news of Nappy ?" 
The Sultaun answer'd him with a cross question, — 

M Pray, can you tell me aught of one John Bull, 

That dwells somewhere beyond your herring-pool ?" 
The query seem'd of difficult digestion, 

1 The well-known resemblance of Italy in the map. 

2 Florence, Venice, &c. 

s The Calabrias, infested by bands of assassins. One of the 
leaders was called Fra Diavolo, i. e. Brother Devil. 

4 Or drubbing ; so called in the Slang Dictionary. 



THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS. 315 

The party shrugg'd, and grinn'd, and took his snuff, 
And found his whole good-breeding scarce enough. 

14. 

Twitching his visage into as many puckers 

As damsels wont to put into their tuckers, 

'Ere liberal Fashion damn'd both lace and lawn, 

Ind bade the veil of modesty be drawn,) 

Replied the Frenchman, after a brief pause* 

,6 Jean Bool ! — I vas not know him — Yes, I vas— 

I vas remember dat, von year or two, 

I saw him at von place calPd Vaterloo — 

Ma foi ! il s'est tres joliment battu, 

Dat is for Englishman, — m'entendez-vous ? 

But den he had wit him one damn son-gun, 

Rogue I no like — dey call him Vellington." 

Monsieur's politeness could not hide his fret, 

So Solimaun took leave, and cross'd the strait. 

15. 

John Bull was in his very worst of moods, 
Raving of sterile farms and unsold goods ; 
His sugar-loaves and bales about he threw, 
And on his counter beat the devil's tattoo. 
His wars were ended, and the victory won, 
But then, 'twas reckoning-day with honest John ; 
And authors vouch, 'twas still this Worthy's way, 
" Never to grumble till he came to pay : 
And then he always thinks, his temper's such, 
The work too little, and the pay too much." l 

Yet, grumbler as he is, so kind and hearty, 
That when his mortal foe was on the floor, 
And past the power to harm his quiet more, 

Poor John had wellnigh wept for Bonaparte ! 
i See the True-Born Englishman, by Daniel De Foe. 



31 G THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINEvSS. 

Such was the wight whom Solimaun salam'd, — 

" And who are you," John answer'd, " and be d — d ?* 

16. 
A stranger, come to see the happiest man, — 
So, signior, all avouch, — in Frangistan." — 1 
" Happy ? my tenants breaking on my hand ; 
Unstock'd my pastures, and untill'd my land ; 
Sugar and rum a drug, and mice and moths 
The sole consumers of my good broadcloths — 
Happy ? — Why, cursed war and racking tax 
Have left us scarcely raiment to our backs." — 
" In that case, signior, I may take my leave ; 

I came to ask a favour — but I grieve" 

" Favour ?" said John, and eyed the Sultaun hard, 

" It's my belief you came to break the yard ! — 

But, stay, you look like some poor foreign sinner, — 

Take that to buy yourself a shirt and dinner." 

"With that he chuck 'd a guinea at his head ; 

But, with due dignity, the Sultaun said, 

" Permit me, sir, your bounty to decline ; 

A shirt indeed I seek, but none of thine. 

Signior, I kiss your hands, so fare you well." 

" Kiss and be d — d," quoth John, " and go to hell !" 

17. 

Next door to John there dwelt his sister Peg, 
Once a wild lass as ever shook a leg 
When the blithe bagpipe blew — but, soberer now, 
She doucely span her flax and milk'd her cow. 
And whereas erst she was a needy slattern, 
Nor now of wealth or cleanliness a pattern, 

* Europe. 



THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS. 317 

Yet once a-month her house was partly swept, 
And once a-week a plenteous board she kept. 
And whereas, eke, the vixen used her claws 

And teeth, of yore, on slender provocation 
She now was grown amenable to laws, 

A quiet soul as any in the nation ; 
The sole remembrance of her warlike joys 
Was in old songs she sang to please her boys. 
John Bull, whom, in their years of early strife, 
She wont to lead a cat-and-doggish life, 
Now found the woman, as he said, a neighbour, 
Who look'd to the main chance, declined no labour, 
Loved a long grace, and spoke a northern jargon, 
And was d— d close in making of a bargain. 

18. 
The Sultaun enter'd, and he made his leg, 
And with decorum curtsy 'd sister Peg ; 
(She loved a book, and knew a thing or two, 
And guess'd at once with whom she had to do.) 
She bade him " Sit into the fire," and took 
Her dram, her cake, her kebbuck from the nook ; 
Ask'd him " about the news from Eastern parts ; 
And of her absent bairns, puir Highland hearts ! 
If peace brought down the price of tea and pepper, 
And if the nitmugs were grown ony cheaper ; — 
Were there nae speerings of our Mungo Park — 
Yell be the gentleman that wants the sark ? 
If ye wad buy a web o' auld wife's spinning, 
111 warrant ye it's a weel-wearing linen." 

19. 
Then up got Peg, and round the house 'gan scuttle 
In search of goods her customer to nail, 



318 THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS. 

Until the Sultaun strain'd his princely throttle, 

And hollo'd, — " Ma'am, that is not what I ail. 
Pray, are you happy, ma'am, in this snug glen ?" — 
" Happy ?" said Peg ; " What for d'ye want to ken ? 
Besides, just think upon this by-gane year, 

Grain wadna pay the yoking of the pleugh." — 
" What say you to the present ?" — " Meal's sae dear, 

To mak their brose my bairns have scarce aneugh." — 
" The devil take the shirt," said Solimaun, 

" I think my quest will end as it began 

Farewell, ma'am ; nay, no ceremony, I beg" 

" Ye'll no be for the linen then ?" said Peg. 

20. 
Now, for the land of verdant Erin, 
The Sultaun's royal bark is steering, 
The Emerald Isle, where honest Paddy dwells, 
The cousin of John Bull, as story tells. 
For a long space had John, with words of thunder, 
Hard looks, and harder knocks, kept Paddy under, 
Till the poor lad, like boy that's flogg'd unduly, 
Had gotten somewhat restive and unruly. 
Hard was his lot and lodging, you'll allow, 
A wigwam that would hardly serve a sow ; 
His landlord, and of middle-men two brace, 
Had screw'd his rent up to the starving-place ; 
His garment was a top-coat, and an old one, 
His meal was a potato, and a cold one ; 
But still for fun or frolic, and all that, 
In the round world was not the match of Pat. 

21. 
The Sultaun saw him on a holiday, 
Which is with Paddy still a jolly day : 



THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS. 319 

When mass is ended, and his load of sins 

Confess'd, and Mother Church hath from her binns 

Dealt forth a bonus of imputed merit, 

Then is Pat's time for fancy, whim, and spirit ! 

To jest, to sing, to caper fair and free, 

And dance as light as leaf upon the tree. 

" By Mahomet," said Sultaun Solimaun, 

" That ragged fellow is our very man ! 

Rush in and seize him — do not do him hurt, 

But, will he nill he, let me have his shirt. 

22. 
Shilela their plan was wellnigh after baulking, 
(Much less provocation will set it a-walking,) 
But the odds that foil'd Hercules foil'd Paddy Whack ; 
They seized, and they floor'd, and they stripp'd him — 
Alack ! 

Up-bubboo ! Paddy had not a shirt to his back ! ! ! 

And the King, disappointed, with sorrow and shame, 
Went back to Serendib as sad as he came. 



KDINBURGH I 
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